Spyro: Dark Companion
by Dragon de Suenos Oscuros
Summary: Malefor's attempts at destroying Avalar have left the land broken and ill-mended. Despite the compromised world, Spryo, Cynder, Sparx, and the cheetahmen continue to thrive. But all is not well within Spyro's mind. A figure visits his dreams, something unlike anything he's ever seen, uttering the same three words: "Nothing is sacred." The dream, however, is becoming a reality.
1. Chapter 1

The searing through Spyro's limbs brought him to consciousness. Vertigo robbed his clarity, and his vision smeared across the stars. Gradually his sight sharpened, and his cognizance rose above the murk of pain and fatigue. He cast his sight down.

Stars glimmered beneath him. Up. Stars above him, brilliant pinpoints amongst the infinite ebon. He wrenched himself forward. He cried out as metal found purchase beneath the scales of his wrists and ankles.

Something floated cross from him. It moved, thrashed, its slick and svelte body the darkest blue, its chest, belly, and neck a blushed rose. His sight wandered up to her eyes: emerald orbs wide with panic.

Cynder.

Spyro called out to her, his voice muffled within an unseen enclosure, a barrier between him and the vastness beyond. She called to him, her wrists and ankles clasped against a metal tablet. Its layered ridges bristled with clawed metallic hands. They encircled the dragoness. Still. Waiting.

Another dragon floated next to her, twice her size, his bulky perse body slack, his crown of marrow horns heavy upon his downcast visage. His wide beige chest tapered to a pinched waist, his stretched torso against a great oval of tarnished, swirled steel, the grain blackened and pockmarked, his arms and legs bound together by rust-ridden cords.

Malefor.

The great dragon raised his head. His lips moved in silent utterance as he chanted. Spyro narrowed his eyes as he focused on the words, the sonance of the chanting: five syllables, over and over, the last pair the weakest.

A constant overcame the vibrations, a thrum that pervaded Spyro's being and shook him to his core. He looked to Cynder. The dragoness' thrashing intensified, and her tears glistened beneath the starlight. She begged him, "_Don't look, don't look, don't look, don't look._"

Life came into the thrum, a presence. Spyro's scales rose against it: the advent of a predator, primordial and eldritch. The stars between the dragons stretched and swirled. Their light extinguished as they merged into a vortex, a hole. The hole's hunger reached further, drew from the stars, extinguished the horizon. Bloody light bloomed within the void's center, small at first: a stellar seedling. It grew rapidly, and the red light dimmed with its growth.

Something took its place: a distant figure, bipedal, its head cowled, its body swathed in torn, filthy rags. Sanguine light poured forth from its gaping mouth. Spyro's head rung with tinnitus. The vibrations of Malefor's chanting brought cadence to the agony.

"_Pierce through, stop, evermore._"

Spyro focused on Cynder. His vision sparked as the sound bored into him. Their eyes met for a moment, serene and sweet.

The hands of her prison came alive and smothered her, dug into her. The metal tendons bulged as they squeezed and wrenched. Blood spattered against her invisible prison, formed a sanguine sphere. Spyro screamed her name. His lean body lurched with nausea.

Malefor's chanting stopped. Spyro slackened within his shackles, his mind and body drained. He rolled his head to the right. Malefor stared at him, his amber eyes wide, waiting. He slowly enunciated two beats.

"_Nothing._"

The tendrils of Malefor's tablet slithered into him, his body rigid as they squirmed deeper, blackened him. With a lingering shudder he collapsed, dangled. The cankerous flesh of his corpse sloughed off into the bottom of his prison.

The bipedal figure hovered between the dragons' corpses, its arms spread, welcoming. It manifested in front of Spyro, shared his prison, the stars within its black eyes.

"_Nothing is sacred._"

Its fingers sank into Spyro's skull.

{{}}

Spyro howled and lashed out. His rationale drowned in base terror, a riptide of turbid emotion.  
Something pulled him from it, something familiar, warm, a gentle hush against the roaring undercurrent. The chaos faded, and the hushing lulled him, took him.

Soft padding cradled his chin. He slowed his breathing and opened his eyes.

Cynder's condolent gaze met his. Spyro remembered her prison, the bloodied sphere. A small quail came from the back of his throat. The dragoness held his muzzle to hers, her voice husky, airy. "Spyro," she whispered. She brushed his muzzle. "It's alright. I'm here."

Spyro's shivering eased. He leaned his head back and swallowed. "Embarrassing."

Cynder smirked. "It's not like I cooed at you."

Spyro parted his tongue from the roof of his mouth. "I sounded like a dying animal."

Cynder laid her head on his chest. Her paw lightly kneaded his scarred golden plating. "Memories?"

Spyro frowned and shook his head. "No. Not post-traumatic. Just..." He struggled for the words. "There's a theme to it."

"Reoccurring?"

Spyro considered that. "Certain elements. There's always this..." He rolled his paw as he sought the words. "Ape...but he's not. Doesn't have a muzzle. Always these..." The after-image of the pinpoint eyes flashed in front of him. "Lights. Small lights in the dark."

Cynder nodded. She put her head beneath his chin. "Could it be a vision?"

"I'm not sure." He curled his paw around Cynder's. "There isn't any of the 'passing out at terminal heights' symptoms like the other visions. This one's always in my sleep."

"Mm," Cynder said, pensive. "Our sleep's been troubled for awhile. Why the concern now?"

Spyro's frown deepened. "They're becoming more frequent."

Cynder's arm moved up to his nape. Her paw massaged the hardened muscle. "How frequent?"

Spyro sighed. "It's progressing more and more, almost every night now." His sight wandered about the smooth, pale blue stone of their cave, a slight gloss to its folds and crevices. He blinked up at the ceiling. "Ignitus hasn't spoken to me since they started."

Cynder's paw softly played along his scales as she mulled over that. "It sounds intrusive."

"Could be, but he's also a Chronicler now. He's indentured. Besides, the dream-speak isn't always reliable. Sometimes it's hard to tell if it's actually him or my own mind at work." Spyro closed his eyes, sought the image of the red and gold fire dragon, his mentor and friend. "I'd sleep better knowing he's there, even if it is in my dreams." He guided the conversation elsewhere. "We still have to help Hunter tomorrow?"

"Today," Cynder corrected. "In about a few hours, actually."

Spyro groaned and put his paw over his head, his scales warm to the touch. "Feels like I'm burning up."

Cynder arched an eyebrow. "What else were you dreaming of?"

"Don't you even start."

Cynder grinned wryly. "Spyro?"

"Yes?"

"You know you elbowed me again."

"I did?"

"Twice."

"Oh dear." Spyro held her to his chest. "I'm just a cold-blooded reptile, aren't I?"

Cynder snorted. "That was terrible."

"You know you loved it."

"Nope. I have pun allergies."

Spyro chuckled at that. "Symptoms?"

"Spontaneous smacking."

Spyro mouthed, "Oh." He brushed his paw across her arm and cradled her chin. "Promise?"

"Now who's starting!" She crinkled her eyes up at him and rested her chin on his chest. Spyro smiled. His paws clasped her nape as he lied his head back. His belly rose and fell against hers.

The pinpoints flashed. Spyro flinched, and the image faded with his consciousness.

A wet squelch awakened Spyro. He opened an eye to find the carefully cut and flayed haunches of some sheep laid out before him. His eyes wandered upward. Cynder sat above him and licked her chops.

Spyro gave her a faux pout. "You ate before me?"

"I let you sleep in and caught you breakfast."

Spyro bobbed his head from side to side. "Fair enough." He rose and ate quickly, barely threshed the meat before he swallowed it. After a quick cleaning he and Cynder left the small, discreet cave and emerged into the cool, dew-dropped morning. The grass glistened beneath a cloud-veiled sun. It was hilly where they lived, the height of the hillside just high enough to obscure the path of any foot-bound creatures.

Spyro and Cynder crouched and leaped. Their wings caught the air with a snap, and the moist breeze rushed past them. Spyro raised his voice over the wind. "How much more food do we have to bring up?"

Cynder did some quick thinking. "Not much. Some cattle, a few dozen bushels-"

"Dozen?" Spyro protested.

"Dozen," Cynder affirmed. "Maybe some herbs."

Spyro shrugged. "Better than yesterday. Felt like a damn relocation."

Cynder chuckled. "It almost was." Her eyes roamed downward. They approached the The Wounds of Avalar: great gouges within the land, the planet's innards crudely sewn shut by gravity. They were the scars left by Malefor, the aftermath of his madness.

Travel proved difficult in Avalar. Plots of soil and rock rose like plateaus while others fell like valleys, the landscape cobbled, malformed. It had not healed well.

Some patches of land were larger, more fertile than others. Life found a way in those areas, while others were too small or too high up and isolated to be hospitable. The natives near Spyro and Cynder, the Cheetahmen, made due with ladders and bridges to close the gap between each other, the produce, materials, and meat transferred to the higher lands via a pulley system. It was a time-consuming process but adequate for self-sufficiency.

Compromised tectonic plates made tremors a part of life for the Cheetahmen. Death remained common despite Malefor's defeat. His destruction lingered. Spyro and Cynder, in their own way, still fought him, did what they could to aid the Cheetahmen, especially Hunter, their friend and ally. They wouldn't let him and his kin go without.

Hunter's village came into view upon an elevated portion of land, the few deciduous trees tall and lush, with ample space for farming and grazing. Below that was a smaller, fertile portion of land enclosed by elevated, layered sandstone. The village usually bustled with activity, the Cheetahmen's shouts and the pulleys' rhythmic creaking like an audible beacon.

Today, no Cheetahmen worked on either level of land. Spyro and Cynder landed on the elevated portion. They panned their sight around at the circle of thatched-roof huts, bloomeries, and mills. They headed toward the largest, central hut only to be stopped when a golden glow sped towards them from the hut's wood-shingled door.

The dragonfly stopped in front of Spyro, his breathing heavy. "It's...it's..."

"Breathe, Sparx," Spyro said. "Air helps with talking."

Sparx shook his head at Spyro. "Thanks...wiseass...it's..." He took a deeper breath. "Hermit. It's Hermit."

"Hermit?" Cynder said, her tone tinged with venom. She didn't have a good history with the cantankerous Cheetahman. "What's he trying to do? Pass last night's gazelle?" She expected Sparx to laugh at that. Much to her surprise, the normally facetious dragonfly didn't bite.

Sparx's blue eyes wandered over to her. "The old cat-man's acting weird...er."

Spyro asked, "How weird?"

"He's on some mojo," Sparx said gravely. "Some _bad_ mojo, I'm talkin' body-rocking-chant-to-nothing-drank-too-much-spiri t-juice-heebie-jeebies mojo."

Spyro arched an eyebrow. "That's some bad mojo."

"It ain't just that," Sparx said. His countenance darkened. "He was clawing himself when we found him. Everything around him was just...stained, splotched in red."

Spyro and Cynder exchanged a glance. Sparx headed back to the hut and beckoned them. "C'mon. It's safe to say that work's been canceled in lieu of the _crazy._"

The dragons ducked and squeezed themselves through the entrance. They stood two heads taller than the Cheetahmen, which made navigating their homes a chore. The dragons had grown rapidly since the two years after Malefor's defeat.

The main room of the hut was lined with huddled Cheetahmen, women, and children, their expressions disconcerted. The heavy air carried the scent of copper, of age and burned herbs.

Hunter stood next to the back room's doorway, his arms crossed over his black boiled leather armor, his vambraces stretched like tendrils over his forearms and hands. He lifted his head. His ears flicked, his left ear torn, a crescent of fur and flesh.

He rasped, "Spyro, Cynder," He strode over to them. The dragons lowered their heads. Hunter hugged them briefly, and his forehead met theirs, a sign of friendship, respect.

Hunter stepped away from them, his azure eyes weary. "Thank you for coming. I'm glad you're here." He glanced back at the door behind him and swallowed, his breaths shallow. He licked his lips. "Come with me, please." He took hesitant steps towards the wooden curtain to the back room, the shingles swaying and clinking. Pulsing amber light escaped through the gaps.

Spyro and Cynder followed him. Spyro hunched and crawled to accommodate himself through the space. The shingles brushed past his face, the scent of rosewood tainted. Something sodden met his paw. He raised it, his calloused padding smeared in crimson, bright before the lamplight. He looked up.

Hermit's head lulled to the side, thin torso bare, dark blue fur matted, loin cloth stained and frayed. The back of his head struck the wall. His lips worked in a tireless chant.

Five syllables.

Spyro shook the pinpoints from his head. He squeezed the rest of his body through the doorway and sat at its side, allowed Cynder to enter. He gave her a discreet warning about the blood on the floor. She acknowledged it with a nod, nonplussed.

Cynder sat herself next to Spyro. Hunter knelt next to Hermit and dipped his fingers into a jar of pungent ointment. He spread it gingerly over Hermit's cuts and gashes.

Spyro asked, "When did this start?"

"Two days ago," Hunter said. "Ironically he wasn't true to his name. He came to us, his eyes glazed. Wouldn't speak past a few words. We set him up here. After awhile he stopped responding, wouldn't eat, drink." He squinted as he thought. "But to bring this episode here." He shook his head. "I don't know what to make of it."

Cynder asked, "Has he ever done anything like this before?"

"That's just it," Hunter replied. "We don't know. His presence here is rare. For all I know he could have chewed the wrong herb, had too much to drink. This could be common for-"

"_Nothing is sacred._" Hermit stilled, his eyes out of focus. Spyro's limbs quivered, his mouth dry.

Hunter leaned closer to Hermit. "What was that?"

Hermit's forefinger tapped upon the earthen floor, slow, steady. His eyes wandered upward. A small groove formed where his claw met the packed ground. The pace hastened and his breathing quickened, his finger blurred.

Hermit stopped. He turned his eyes to Spyro. He lunged at him, his clawed hands to the dragon's temples, his voice strained and desperate. "_You were the salvation, the slumber._" Spyro pushed Hermit off him. The cheetahman fell onto his side. A small sob shook him. "No sleep for us now." He pressed his head against the floor. His shaking claws raked the ground. "He's coming."

Spyro fought for his composure. Everything within him froze. His inner fear, his nightmares, now had substance.

He tapped into his reservoir of strength, his bulwark against the insanity. He spoke to Hermit, his voice clear, ringing, the voice of a guardian, strong and gentle. "Who is it, Hermit? Whom are you speaking of?"

Hermit choked, his exhalation shallow. "Pain...its seekers emptied, the rest ravaged."

Spryo shook his head. "Hermit, think: what did you see?"

Hermit took a slow, deep breath. "Black Star...lingering...spanning...old, so old."

"What did it come to you as?"

Hermit bared his teeth, his eyes tensed shut. "The stars devoured. Light beyond our reach."

Spryo nodded slowly. He drew deeper into his reservoir of strength. With ginger steps he approached Hermit and lied himself next to him, his voice softer, condolent. "I've seen something similar."

Hermit looked up at Spyro, his words tremulous. "The Black Star?"

"As you call it, yes."

Hermit turned his eyes to the floor. The pace of his heart eased. "It wants us, Spyro."

Spyro wondered if Hermit had seen the figure, the muzzle-less creature from his dreams. Yet there was no denying the five syllables. Hermit, while not inclined towards visions, possessed an earned sensitivity towards spiritual aspects.

Spyro's dual-bladed gift of visions was ultimately limited to his perspective. "Hermit," he coaxed, "is there anything else you can tell me? Do you know what it comes from? What it is?"

Hermit's head shook. Saliva stretched from his lips, and his torso bowed. The vision's influence still had a hold of him, would gradually fade from his mind and body, much like the nausea. He gazed up at Spyro, his eyes lucid. "Its origins are beyond us, its motives base." He tried to push himself off the ground with his trembling arms. Spyro helped him up with a single paw and sat him against the wall. Hermit closed his eyes, and his head rolled back. With a slow dread he said, "It nears."

Cynder sided herself next to Spyro. Her shoulder brushed against his. Her presence abated the chill through his scales. Spyro asked Hermit, "How close?"

Hermit gave the dragon an oblique stare. "Days, at most."

"How will we know?"

Hermit's eyes crinkled. An airless cackle came from him. "I think you already know." Like a smothered flame the emotion left him. His visage slackened, his head cast downward, his signs of breathing imperceptible.

Hunter crouched next to Hermit, his brow knitted in thought. "I'm presuming...," he turned to Spyro, "that you two shared similar visions?"

Spyro sat up on his haunches and nodded. "The pinpoints. The words."

"'Nothing is sacred?''

"Yes, though I'm wondering something."

Hunter glanced back at Hermit. "Is it safe to pry?"

Spyro nodded again. "I think you all deserve to hear it, crazy as it sounds already."

Cynder rubbed Spyro's shoulder. She gave him a thin-lipped smile. Her bright narrowed eyes belied her crow's feet. "I doubt anyone's going throw the crazy stone at you."

Sparx's voice came from behind them. "I might," he said as he flew to Spyro's other side. The dragonfly added, "Or a stupid, fat purple rock." He rubbed his chin and looked around. "Now where could I find one of those..."

"Sparx..." Spryo said, his annoyance offset by amusement.

"One with stupid, matching yellow horns..."

Sparx's comment triggered a detail from Spyro's dream. "Malefor," Spyro uttered.

Sparx gave Spyro a dubious look. "Nah. He's _too_ fat. And dead. Probably in a deer's digestive system at this point."

"Sparx, wait," Spyro urged.

"I mean how ironic would that be? Crazy bastard's head must have been full of sh-"

"Sparx! He was in my dream!"

Sparx's wings stilled briefly. He caught the air again, his humor gone. "Wait, what?"

"Him..." Spyro's eyes met Cynder's. "And you."

Cynder's lips parted. "What else happened?" The old fear of Malefor still lingered in the dragoness, a fear she held back.

Spyro sometimes forgot that they used to be enemies. He said to her, "I lost you in that dream. Malefor died too. You two were amongst the stars, bound to these...tablets? I don't know what to call them. The prisons...they killed you. And when you two were dead he came for me."

Cynder didn't ask for the ending of the dream. Spyro's disturbed air didn't bode well with her. She looked to Hermit, the Cheetahman still, almost catatonic. She said to Spyro, "I hate to say it, but this is more than coincidence. You've been right about these things before."

"Not that I've wanted to be," Spyro said in dismay. He gritted his teeth. "I'd very much like to be _wrong_." His sense of obligation conflicted with his desire for peace, for sanity. The physical and mental scars were still fresh, and the faintest illumination made them all too apparent. But he couldn't ignore the signs.

Hunter did a once-over on Hermit before looking to Spyro and Cynder. "Our debt to you is bottomless, especially for ones so young." He walked over to them and laid his hands upon their shoulders, their scales smooth beneath hardened sinew. "No one would think less of you for staying."

Spyro gave a sad laugh. "You know we can't do that."

Hunter gave their shoulders a light squeeze and released them. "Suppose you're right." He looked back at Hermit. "He's going to need our care. Fortunately, you two have more than helped us with resources." He gave them a teasing smile. "We'll just have to find another prophecy dragon to bring us venison."

Spyro smirked. "Get Sparx. He needs a hobby."

"Speak not that devil word!" Sparx said. "It involves me _not_ encroaching upon yours and Cynder's nighty night time."

Cynder's lips thinned. "Spyro, put a muzzle on the _insect._"

"Spyro," Sparx said, "declaw your lady." He took a look at Spyro's haunches. "Might save your butt future pain."

Cynder reined her anger. "That's from _sparring._"

Sparx snorted. "So that's what you whippersnappers are calling it nowadays."

Spyro put himself between the two. "Could we continue this outside, please?" He lent Hunter a helpless look. The Cheetahman returned a light laugh and waved them off. Spyro gave him a parting grin before he, Cynder, and Sparx left the small room and into the central one, where the dragons and dragonfly received kinds words and small bows from the other Cheetahmen.

Once outside and away from witnesses, Cynder made a lunge at the dragonfly. "Where do you get off calling us _whippersnappers?_"

"Hey!" Sparx reeled away from Cynder's snap. "And where do you get off abusing my step-bro?"

"I didn't abuse him!"

"At least hunt him dinner before you _spar_ him.

Cynder roared, "_IT'S SPARRING!"_

Sparx remained nonplussed. "Looks like _someone_ hit a nerve."

"_Spyro..._" Cynder growled.

Spyro raised his voice. "Both of you. Like each other. Now." Cynder and Sparx gave him indignant looks before they settled own. They exchanged a glare and turned their attention to Spyro.

Spyro took a moment to ensure their neutrality. "Alright then," he said with a heavy breath. "I don't want to do this, but I'm not going to rest easy until I know for certain."

Sparx asked, "About the starry-eyed ne'er-do-well?"

"You mean The Black Star?"

Sparx shrugged. "Whatever he's called." He tapped his chin. "Doesn't have the same ring as 'Dark Master' though, does it?"

Spyro's nightmare resurfaced. He saw the cankered flesh that sloughed off Malefor's body. Yet Malefor's presence in the dream didn't make sense. He didn't even know for certain if Malefor was dead. Dragon spirits had intervened in that battle, had taken Malefor away in his moment of weakness. He didn't know what significance Malefor had, but he knew where to find out. "White Isle."

Cynder gave a slight shake of her head. "What?"

"White Isle," Spyro repeated. "Ignitus would know..."

Cynder staunched him. "Do you realize how far away that is? Have you even looked at a map, or did you forget that a...," she turned to Sparx and mimed, "'_freaky little turtle monster_," she said to Spyro, "took you there?"

Sheepishly, Spyro said, "Well, I've done it before. How else do you plan on getting there?"

Cynder sighed, her head lowered. "I don't know, Spyro. We could try, but what we're talking about is at least a month's trip, not to mention Avalar's wounds."

Sparx gave a pronounced, "Ahem."

Spyro and Cynder turned to him. Spyro asked, "Suggestion?"

Sparx put his arms behind his back. He looked off to the side, his expression coy. "I may know a certain someone-something-friend-of-a-friend...fellow."

Spyro scrunched his brow. "Why are you being vague?"

Sparx was hesitant. "Well, uh...Ever since you two started _frolicking_." A low growl came from Cynder. Sparx ignored it. "I've been making efforts to become a more proactive member in the mole community."

Spyro was surprised. "I figured they had all gone back underground."

"Most of the mole-peeps did," Sparx confirmed. "Except one..."

Spyro made a permissive gesture. "And?"

Sparx rubbed his knuckles against his chest. "Let's just say that due to my heroic exploits, he's decided to take me on as his _apprentice._"

Cynder didn't believe him. "You're his lantern, aren't you?"

"I am not!" Sparx shot back.

Spyro cooled the imminent diatribe. "Okay, okay, so...How did you meet him?"

Sparx rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, uh...was kinda passing by what looked like this oversized hut and all of a sudden I started hearing all this cursing and crashing. I flew over to see what the ruckus was about and before I knew it this mole was at his door with a revolver at my head."

"Natural enough reaction," Cynder approved.

"Shut up. Anyway, he kinda stared at me for a bit before inviting me inside."

Spyro harrumphed. "Huh. So what made him change his mind?"

Sparx puffed himself up. "He was in need of my assistance."

Cynder said, "He needed a light."

Sparx deflated. "No..."

"Sure he did, though why he chose an ass-pain lantern is beyond my comprehension."

Sparx clenched his fists. He stuck out his lower lip. "Spyro...She's being a stupid meanie head..."

"Cynder," Spyro said with barely restrained sarcasm, "stop being a meanie head."

"If you insist," Cynder said. She found her focus again, despite the dragonfly's presence. "What's he have to do with us getting to the White Isle?"

Sparx huffed and crossed his arms. "Well, he's a geomancer, for one."

That intrigued Spyro. "Most moles are smiths. Why'd he pick up geomancy?"

Sparx scoffed at that. "I don't pry into his past. All I know is that he's working on something, trying to combine the power of crystals with metallurgy. As for how that applies to seeing Ignitus, well...we don't _have_ to go to the White Isle to talk to him."

Spyro asked, "Like how Ignitus projected himself within the crystals?"

Sparx nodded. "Yeah, except Haedrig's figured out how to make outgoing calls."

"Haedrig's his name?"

"Yeah. He's not too far either, about a couple hours northeast from here."

Spyro considered that. "Well, we're not making anyway leeway here." Before he leaped into flight he said to Sparx, "I can't believe you."

Bemused, Sparx asked, "What?"

"Befriending strangers behind my back." Spyro tsked. "You little tramp." He took to the air at that.

Sparx and Cynder craned their heads up as Spyro ascended. The dragoness grinned. Sparx gave her an inquisitive look. "What's so funny?"

Cynder snorted and said, "Tramp-lantern." She leaped and flew after Spyro.

Sparx gaped up at the dragons and shook his head. "So now I'm the only sane one." He flew after them and muttered, "Stupid frolicky tramp-lizard."


	2. Chapter 2

Spyro groaned against the oncoming wind. "Couple hours, Sparx? Did you lose your temporal sense when I started _frolicking_ too?"

Sparx flew within Spyro's wind stream, which made following much easier. He pointed a finger at the purple dragon. "We're moving on from that. Now, a few things you need to know..."

Spyro and Cynder smothered Sparx with their glares. Sparx asked, "What?"

Spyro said, "You're giving us the after-warnings now?"

Sparx played innocent. "After what? I told you what you needed to know."

Spyro's glare pierced deeper. "_After_ we're nearly there?"

"Well, I may have fibbed the 'nearly,' but not as much as-"

Cynder bared her teeth at Sparx. "Not as much as what?"

"Alright! Alright!" The dragonfly stopped. Spyro and Cynder hovered at his sides.

Spyro asked, "What did you hide?"

Sparx gave a weak toss of his arms. "Well, uh...Malefor's Siege?" Spyro nodded. Sparx said, "Haedrig helped fight against it. He mostly dealt with the skirmishes, assisted how he could. But there came a time when..."

Cynder pressed him. "Time when?"

Reluctantly, Sparx said, "When the dragons couldn't take their own."

Th wind deafened. Spyro gave himself a moment to process Sparx's revelation. "Why would he need our dead?"

Sparx shrugged. "He said they're the only thing that reacts to the crystals. There was no one to ask, and Haedrig...well, he wouldn't have done it if he didn't have to. He might be eccentric, but he's still a traditionalist."

The idea unnerved Spyro, but he understood the mindset. If what Sparx said was true about Haedrig's character, then the Manweresmall did it for the sake of others.

It was the price that concerned Spyro. "He's only found them?"

Sparx waved the question off. "Of course! Are you kidding? He's been loyal to the dragons since day one. His methods may be a little on the mojo side for a Manweresmall, but trust me, you _want_ him on your side."

Spyro didn't push the subject further. "Fine then, but I'd better not get asked for 'samples.'"

"Don't worry," Sparx assured. "I'll leave that job for Cynder." The dragonfly barely evaded Cynder's snap.

Cynder's livid eyes grew wide. "Spyro! I have to kill this insect!"

Spyro groaned in exasperation. "Could we save the murder attempts until _after_ we've talked with Ignitus? I've got enough on my mind already."

Cynder and Sparx restrained themselves. The dragonfly grabbed a hold of Spyro's horn. "Sorry," Sparx offered. "Wiseassery's kinda ingrained into my psyche."

"I noticed," Spyro said as he searched for the building Sparx had described: a large rammed earth home with dark clay-tile roofing, the building encircled by jutted pipes from the ground. "How are we going to fit inside?"

"You can squeeze through," Sparx said. "Navigating might be a problem, but he's set himself up with a lot of space. Kinda needed to, considering..." He silenced himself.

Spyro ignored the lapse. He tilted his head up at a structure in the distance. "Is that it?"

Sparx narrowed his eyes and put a hand above his brow. "Yup. That would be it."

"Hey Sparx."

"What?"

"Did you eat anything before we left?"

"No."

"Good." Spyro streamlined his limbs and dropped height, and the air around him roared as he plummeted, the dragonfly's cursing a distant voice. He looked to his right. Cynder was next to him. She turned her head to him, and her eyes crinkled as she smiled.

Their wings split the air as they arrested their momentum, and their fours landed softly upon the lush grass. Sparx finished his tirade. "...OFF A CHEETAHMAN'S HAIRBALLS!" He blinked at the ground beneath him before he fell off Spyro's horn and sprawled upon the grass.

Spyro said to the reposed dragonfly, "You could have just let go."

Sparx rolled his head to Spyro, his tone sarcastic. "Yeah, because I really wanted to be buffeted by storm-speed winds, you jerk."

"Up, up, Sparx," Spyro said. He gently picked up the dragonfly. "We need to meet this Haedrig of yours."

Sparx flew out of Spyro's paw and crossed his arms. He said indignantly, "My antennae are tussled."

"Deal. Now come on, I want to get this..." Spyro's fours buckled, and his belly thudded upon the ground. He rolled onto his back and cradled his head, his mouth agape in a silent scream.

Cynder rushed over to him. "Spyro! Spyro, what's wrong?"

The pinpoints manifested in Spyro's vision. A rumbling pervaded his hearing as red tendrils crept up from his periphery. Cynder faded from his sight as the pinpoints became brighter, the redness pulsing darker.

The rumbling stopped, the red now black. Only the pinpoints remained, eyes within eyes.

{{}}

Something cool and damp against Spyro's brow brought him to consciousness. Cynder had a wet rag within her prehensile paw. She dabbed it against his forehead, cheeks, and neck. Spyro croaked, "What happened?"

A different voice answered, an excited one. "I'll tell ya what happened." Quick feet pattered across the swept stone ground. "A prophecy dragon passed out in front of my bloody home! That's what happened!"

Spyro raised his head and took in the Manweresmall. Haedrig wore a black apron with sanguine filigree, his thin-furred upper body striated with corded gristle. A red quasicrystal glowed within his thickly glove hands, its facets flat and smooth. He strode to Spyro's side and offered the crystal to him. "Doesn't look like much, but this rings better with you all."

Spyro shook his head. "Rings better?"

"I'll explain later, just hold it against you."

Spyro held it to his chest. He gasped as a wave of hot and cold pervaded his body. His headache abated, his dizziness gone. The crystal healed far quicker than the ones naturally grown. "Where do you find these?"

The Manweresmall scratched his chops in thought. "Ah, well, that's a bit of a trade secret. I think we should take a few steps back first. Get to know each other." Sparx floated beside him. Haedrig tilted his head at the dragonfly and asked Spyro, "I'm guessing my talk-lantern's already blabbed about my life history?"

Cynder restrained a snort. Spyro said, "More or less."

Haedrig nodded and looked off to the side. "Ah...then you know about-"

Spyro cut him off. "The dragon parts, yes."

Haedrig lowered his head. "I mean no disrespect, especially towards you two. We wouldn't even be standing here if it weren't for you."

A faint smiled graced Spyro's muzzle. "Huh. So I am a nice guy." He turned his head to Cynder. "Hear that? You ought to start treating me better."

Cynder gave him a dubious frown. "I already treat you well."

"I said _better._" Spyro raised his eyebrows and grinned.

Cynder rolled her eyes. She said to Haedrig, "Yeah. He's fine. Anyway, Sparx told us you could get us in contact with the White Isle. Is that true?"

Haedrig mouthed "White Isle" to himself. His black-ringed yellow eyes peered around the large workroom. "I can definitely do that, though I need to hold you to something first."

Spyro and Cynder exchanged a glance. Spyro asked, "Hold?"

Haedrig held his hands out. "Just promise me something: don't rip my neck out when you see the other room."

Spyro gave him an inquisitive look. "We already know you use our dead. What else have you done?"

"It ain't that," Haedrig said with rising anxiety. "I'm just trying to see it from your perspective. I mean...I'd be a wee bit scared out of my mind if I saw Manweresmall bones lying around. I don't understand how you can be so calm."

Spyro listened with an equivocal air. "You didn't kill them."

Haedrig nodded. "No, never."

"And you intend on helping us?"

Haedrig frenetically nodded. "Yes! I'd be a right mule's ass not to! I've been waiting for this chance for too long!"

Spyro remained impassive. "And you need them?"

"I can it explain it to you," Haedrig assured. He looked about his main room, with its carved-in alcoves that stored crystal assortments of varying, shape, color, size, and texture. Some were jagged stars while others resembled perfectly faceted die. Some glowed faintly, illuminated the stone recesses with gently pulsing hues of blue and red.

Haedrig waved his arm around the room. "I keep the more common crystals in here. The other materials are further down."

"Down?" Spyro asked.

Haedrig nodded. "In the cellar. I feel more comfortable under the land. I can think better. That's where I do most of my work."

That made sense to Spyro. Manweresmalls spent most of their life underground. He imagined Haedrig felt less exposed. "Okay then," Spyro said as he got to his fours. "Lead the way."

Haedrig gave an anxious laugh. "Suppose I should." He beckoned them towards a square walkway that led to the kitchen. The size of the place surprised Spyro. He still had to squeeze through, but for a Manweresmall the proportions were considerable.

The kitchen was austere, clean and streamlined. The stone counter lined three sides of the room. Above the counter were more alcoves that stored jarred perishables and ground spices, with clusters of twine-bound herbs that dangled from wall hooks. At the far right was another doorway. Spyro asked, "Why do you have so much room?"

Haedrig ambled over to the wooden stairwell that led to the dark cellar. "You never know who you'll have over." He gave the dragons a conspiratorial grin.

Spyro smirked. "Point taken. Anything else we should be aware of?"

Haedrig stopped at the stairwell's entrance, his expression ruminant. "Check your magic."

Cynder tensed her eyelids. "Our magic? Why would we need to use it?"

"You won't need to," Haedrig said. "But down there...best to keep it suppressed."

Cynder didn't like the answer. "Are you hiding something from us?"

"Nothing that will hurt you," Haedrig said. He wet his throat. "I'm just not sure how to explain it all. You'll have to see."

Spyro and Cynder turned to Sparx. The dragonfly didn't buckle under the interrogative looks. "He's telling the truth, guys. Just go with it, okay?"

After a moment Spyro and Cynder nodded. Haedrig smiled at the dragonfly. "Thanks, Sparx." He continued his descent down the stairwell and shouted up, "Best lantern a Manweresmall can have."

Sparx's eye twitched. "I'M NOT YOUR SLAVE LANTERN!"

They glimpsed Haedrig's indifferent wave as the Manweresmall walked down the steps. Sparx sputtered his lips and flew after him. Spyro and Cynder followed. The dragoness carried a satisfied smile upon her muzzle. Spyro guessed that she appreciated the jest.

The stairwell was wider, something the dragons were grateful for, albeit the lack of light unnerved them. Even Sparx's light wasn't adequate enough to ward off the darkness. Spyro presumed that Manweresmalls were more sensitive to light, and that Haedrig didn't need as much illumination. Spyro narrowed his eyes as he took cautious steps down the stairwell. An azure glow waited at the bottom. The dragons' scales raised as they neared the stairwell's end. The tang of minerals pervaded the cellar's earthly redolence.

Spyro ducked under the doorway and entered the room.

Hot and cold luminescence swathed the granite cellar. The hollowed eyes of draconic skulls pulsed with small stars of light within the walls' alcoves. Within the maws of the dragons skulls were crystals of brilliant intensity and intricate shape. A few of them bore dark crystals: black crystalline eyes that warped the light around them.

Spyro and Cynder knew the thrum this room emitted, the thing that made their scales rise and hearts hasten. There was life within the dead, dormant and eldritch. Haedrig stood before Spyro and Cynder, his head cast down. "I know you can sense it. I didn't..." He sighed, his teeth clenched. "This isn't something I wanted to show you."

Spyro was barely aware of Haedrig's words. Whispers brushed against his mind, the phantoms of lives long gone. Yet there was no real emotion here, no pain or malice. It existed as a medium, the product of elements combined. This medium, this thrum, this power, was neutral. Haedrig had harnessed it. "You're telling the truth," Spyro said. "I know you mean well."

The remark surprised Haedrig. "How can you tell?"

Spyro took in more details before he answered. He turned around. The chamber branched off into three more chambers. The pulsing light from them mingled with the main chamber's sepulchral glow. "Nothing here's malign. It's just...there." He looked to Cynder for elaboration.

Cynder met Spyro's eyes with her own stricken gaze. She was familiar with the darker aspects, the life manipulated and tormented. "We would have felt it, Haedrig," she said, her eyes deep into Spyro's.

Haedrig asked, "Felt it?"

Cynder broke the stare. She looked down at the cerulean, black-speckled stone beneath her. "Something clings to the dead, especially with dragons. You're not trying to bring them back or bend them or twist them. You're using elements already there."

Haedrig shook his head. "I still don't understand how you can know."

Cynder pointed at the dragons skulls that bore the black crystals. "Their elements were already gone. They're in tune with the black crystals now. That's the only resonation they know."

Haedrig mouthed, "Resonation..." He answered his own inner question. "The tune...you all tell by the tune, don't you?"

Cynder nodded. "We can't really hold anything against you. You're trying to understand something that's meant to be beyond you. Your perceptions only go so far. It's like us trying to physically see like you all. We can't detect the fainter light. You all can. From that you make, see, more connections than we can, despite it being a shared ability."

Haedrig nodded, his hand to his chin. "I want to say 'I see.'" He chuckled. "Ain't the same though, is it?"

Cynder returned the chuckle. "'Feel' might be better, but sight shares with other senses too."

Spyro walked to Haedrig's side. His vision alternated between the three chambers. "Which one of these has the tuning crystal?"

Haedrig pointed at the middle chamber. "This way." The dragons and dragonfly followed the Manweresmall into the center chamber. At the end of the chamber was a large, round, granite pedestal. Three dragon skulls were slanted above the pedestal within individual recesses, their eyes focused on a central point. The skulls bore colored crystals within their open maws: one red, one green, one blue.

Upon the pedestal was a bronze map of Avalar, the metal etched with black to delineate the landscape and names. Small clear crystal globes were embedded into marked locations on the map, the names written next to the crystals. Embedded in the center of the map was a large, bone-clasped, translucent tuning crystal. Suspended above the table was a broad bronze bell, its crown lined with curving talons. It had no clapper.

Haedrig gestured at the map. "This is before Avalar's wounds, of course." He ran his hand across the swirling metal that symbolized Avalar's ocean. His fingertip rested upon a small engraving of a temple, the words "White Isle" written next to it in cursive wisps.

Spyro absorbed the details of the map, his lips parted as he examined the craftsmanship. "You did all this?"

Haedrig nodded and looked up at the skulls. "Unfortunately I can't just tune in anywhere. Much like you and crystals, places and things have a tune as well. The crystals you see on the map were taken from their respective locations." He tapped the White Isle's crystal with his forefinger. "This, as you can imagine, wasn't easy to get a hold of."

Spyro's vision wandered up to the bell above them. "I don't understand. Why the bell? How are we going to see sound?"

Haedrig beamed at the question. "That's the tricky part, something even I don't completely understand." He waved his finger at Cynder. "Your mate, however, made a very interesting observation earlier." The Manweresmall walked over to the side of the pedestal, where an iron rod with a round head was hung. Next to it was a wooden rod, the end of it swathed in a ball of leather and fur. Haedrig took both into his hands and approached the bell.

"Sound and light share something. One we hear, the other we see, yet at the same time we can feel them depending on the intensity or distance, be it a quake or a candle." The Manweresmall raised his head at the dragon skulls. "Dragons transcend those boundaries. The crystals, however, play an important role as well. Were it not for your unique abilities this wouldn't be possible."

Sparx mustered the most obnoxious "ahem" he could, the sound akin to an elderly choke victim. "So," he said passively, "we gonna play some eye-music or what?"

Haedrig smirked at that. "Suppose I've gabbed long enough. A demonstration would convey much more." The dragons gave permissive nods. Haedrig looked up at the bell, and his hand tightened around the iron rod. He reared the rod back and struck it.

The air displaced, the chamber denuded of sound. It returned gradually: a low hum that intensified into a hollowed moan. The sound's waves warbled, became longer, the cycles drawn out.

The crystals within the dragon skulls flashed, and the colored lights beamed down upon the pedestal's center. Fluorescence and shadow swirled through the map's tuning crystal, cast waves of luminescence throughout the room. Haedrig took the wooden rod and pressed the padding against the bell. He observed the map's smaller crystals. "Come on," he softly beckoned. He focused on the White Isle's crystal as he dabbed the felt against the bell, softened the vibrations with each touch.

Color washed into the tuning crystal, phantasmagoric at first, the images too fleeting to be distinct. Haedrig said to the dragons, "Let's hope your friend answers. I've got every crystal like this ringing like mad."

The White Isle's crystal flashed. The bell's hum became a crisp, constant ring. The imagery in the tuning crystal sharpened: eyes of molten gold stared back, narrowed pupils as slits. A voice came through, rasped yet calm. "Spyro? Spyro is that you?"

Spyro barely restrained his excitement. "Ignitus! I...I knew you hadn't really died, but I...just to see you...I can't find the..." He cocked his head. "You're blue."

Ignitus smiled in amusement. "All the time that's transpired and it's my scales that befuddle you?"

Spyro shrugged. "Just hard to find the words right now. When Terrador told me you had become Chronicler I couldn't have been happier."

Ignitus' smile became wan. "Your mentors and I have much to catch up on, as do we." The blue dragon's eyes met Haedrig's. "Did you help orchestrate this?"

The Manweresmall puffed with pride. "I did. Never thought I'd be privy to such a thing." With a quick mental jog he changed subjects. "But I'll take my leave and let you three talk."

Ignitus brightened. "Thank you. Perhaps we can speak again?"

Haedrig nodded, grinned from ear to ear before he let Cynder into the tuning crystal's view. Cynder's voice warmed. "It's wonderful to see you again, Ignitus."

"As it is you, Cynder. You two have been fairing well?"

Spryo and Cynder exchanged a thin-lipped smile. Spyro said, "She's helped keep me sane through all this." The words primed his image of The Black Star. Something dark graced his visage, and his smile slackened.

The shift in countenance unsettled Ignitus. "What ails you, Spyro?"

Spyro assembled the recollection in his head. "I've been having these reoccurring dreams. They're like visions except they were only in my sleep."

Concern crept into Ignitus' voice. "Were?"

Spyro nodded. "I was helping the Cheetahmen when Hunter pulled us aside. Hermit was in a state of delirium, had clawed himself. I didn't know what to make of it until he said the same thing I heard in my dream."

Ignitus' attention was rapt. "Which was?"

"Nothing is sacred."

Ignitus mouthed the words to himself, his expression somber. "I've heard these words somewhere before. And who in your dream said this?"

"Hermit called him 'The Black Star.'"

Ignitus stilled. A tremor of fear ran through Spyro. "Ignitus...does that name have any significance?"

Ignitus' words came out tremulous, airy. "It does now." The dragon ran a paw across his muzzle, his brow wrinkled with worry. "Spyro...I want you to know something before I tell you this. I never intended to mislead you or keep information from you. But this lapse..." He turned to the side. His arm blurred, and a subsequent crash distorted his image. "Fools! All of us!"

Spyro winced. He hadn't seen Ignitus this angry. "I know you would never withhold information from me. Even if it was something I wouldn't like you would be honest and help me through it."

Ignitus' chest rose and fell, his breaths heavy. "Dearest dragons...what I speak of isn't a matter of truth." He wet his tongue. "It was a short-sight."

Spyro asked hesitantly, "How?"

Ignitus brooded, his head down. "As you well know, Malefor was hellbent on razing Avalar from existence. Obviously, Malefor was mad, insane. The Elders presumed his power had driven him to that madness. Revered as they are, The Elders ultimately let their fear dictate their reason. That's why they banished him."

Spyro asked, "But what's this have to do with The Black Star?"

Ignitus swallowed, his jaw slackening. "There is a line of text in Malefor's Chronicle." He paused as he remembered the words:

"_They did not understand his fatalism, his vision of purity by fire. When they asked, Malefor answered, 'Nothing is sacred.'"_

Spyro's muscles seized as he sought to control his shaking. His hoarse voice belied his composure. "What else did it say?"

Ignitus dug deeper into his mind, the script vivid in his memory. "_When asked why, Malefor answered, 'We are fodder for the blackest star, devoured alive in blackness and filth.'"_

A cold weight pulled Spyro's heart. "Ignitus...are you telling me that...The Black Star's the reason why Malefor went insane?"

Ignitus swallowed, his throat dry. "We, I, did not read into Malefor's words. I did not see the substance. We all thought it was a part of his insanity. I wish I had known better. I would have told you. But for your experience to give merit to this nightmare...there's no denying it."

Spyro drew into his reservoir of strength, that pool of light within him. He tempered his fear with fact: The Black Star was a threat that would have to be dealt with. "He'll be coming in a matter of days. Hermit told me as much."

Ignitus' eyes widened. "Days?" The Chronicler drew into his own inner strength. His frown deepened. "Spyro...these connections are graver than I could have imagined. You, the purple dragons, are the pinnacle of draconic strength. If this thing, this Black Star, drove Malefor to his actions, then I fear that drastic steps will have to be taken."

Spyro canted his head. "What are you getting at?"

Ignitus was wrapped in his own thoughts. "We cannot let fear dictate our actions." He collected himself and took a deep breath. "Malefor must have known that he didn't stand a chance. This influence, this _thing_ infected him deeply. He knows this Black Star better than any of us."

Cynder flinched. "What do you mean 'knows?'"

Another hesitance in speech. "Spyro, Cynder...Malefor isn't truly dead. His physical body is in ruin, but his spirit is still whole, hasn't become a part of the greater expanse. I imagine the Elders haven't either." His eyes glazed as he thought. "Not with something like this in our midst."

The mention of Malefor sparked anger within Cynder. "What is it, Ignitus? Just say it!"

Ignitus explained quickly. "This power is beyond us. If we are to defeat it, then we will have to commit heresy." He locked eyes with them, his words unwavering. "We will have to bring back Malefor."


	3. Chapter 3

Cynder's lips twisted into a snarl. "_Bring him back?_"

Ignitus' frown deepened. He sighed and said, "I don't want this anymore than you do."

"But to resort to that? You can't be serious. We barely defeated him before, and you want to bring him back with a grudge?"

"His power wouldn't be what it was." Ignitus staunched her spurn with an outstretched paw. "You can't truly restore him to his physical body. It would be a template, a mimicry."

Spyro asked, "But how would that matter?"

"It can mean everything," Ignitus said. "When you learn something it doesn't just get stored in some intangible part of you. Your body learns it as well. We wouldn't be erasing Malefor's memory, but his body's memory would be an empty slate."

Spyro considered that. "Like muscle memory?"

"Yes, but as you know that applies to magic as well. Malefor would be hampered greatly."

Cynder held her paw out. "I still don't see how that would help us. He'd be as insane as he was before."

Ignitus carefully chose his words. "Not quite. The mind, brain, is a physical part as well. What the psyche carries with it may still be intact, but the memories, thoughts, would be seedlings at best. They wouldn't be rooted."

The notion interested Spyro, despite the ramifications. "It almost sounds like reincarnation."

"In a way it is," Ignitus replied. "Whether these thoughts would take root again would be for the future to decide."

Cynder's scowl was tinged with ache. "I don't want him back, Ignitus."

Spyro could tell that Cynder was reliving the memories. The old wounds were opening. Spyro pressed his muzzle against her cheek.

The creases beneath Ignitus' eyes deepened. "I won't force you into this, you know that. But we can't ignore this. I..." He clenched his teeth. "I've never felt so old, to be so deep within these moral grays."

Spyro and Cynder took his words with a bittersweet grace. Cynder squeezed her eyes shut, her muzzle against Spyro's. With a quick breath she turned from him. Her lips parted as she strove for clarity. She said to Ignitus, "You've already sacrificed enough for us. I doubt you'd stop now. Like Spyro said: you'd never withhold anything from us. You'd help us through it."

A burden lifted from Ignitus. He gave them a small smile. "That means the world to me." He refocused his thoughts. "As for this dark matter, I will have to guide you. The Elders have come to your aid before. I know how you can bring them again."

Haedrig's jaw dropped. "Dragon spirits? In my house?" The notion horrified him. He peered around at the dragon skulls in his chamber. "I think I'm going to hell."

Ignitus shook his head. "The Elders aren't that intolerant. They've seen much, far more than we'll ever see. Let's just hope their fear hasn't blinded them to The Black Star."

Sparx stooped, and his arms dangled as he gawked. "Okay..." He nodded languidly. "Okay...so...in order to defeat an eldritch deity of unknown power we're going to bring back a psychotic dragon and put him in a new body?"

The dragons and Haedrig grimaced at the wording. Ignitus said, "Aptly put, as always."

Sparx blew out a breath and clapped his hands. "Logic. Okay, let's get this weird mojo going then."

"One more thing," Ignitus said. He turned to Cynder. "The collar. Do you still have it?"

Cynder's muzzle furrowed. "I do. But...it's changed."

"Changed?" Ignitus asked, "How?"

"It's physical appearance," Cynder elaborated, "it's not whole anymore. Over time it started...segmenting."

Ignitus tilted his head. "Segmented? As in pieces?"

Cynder's brow furrowed as she thought. "It's come apart, but it's held together by these links."

"Like chains?"

Cynder nodded. "Not metal though. Doesn't shine. I don't know what they're made of. They're like solid shadow. I'm not sure why it happened."

Ignitus mulled over the phenomenon. "The trap's open."

Cynder jerked her head back. "Trap?"

"That's my only guess. It's readied itself for a new captive." The theory brought Ignitus to his caveat. "Even with Malefor in his weakened state, there is a chance that he could regain his strength, depending on how fast his body accepts the spirit. It would be wise to bind him in case that happens."

Impassively, Cynder said, "That can be arranged."

The response unsettled Spyro, but he didn't hold it against her. The collar symbolized her past captivity, yet without it they would have never shared what they have now. Despite its origins, they couldn't bring themselves to get rid of it.

Whether Cynder's response unnerved Ignitus, they couldn't tell. "Well," Ignitus said with bated breath, "as Sparx so eloquently said, 'let's get this weird mojo going'."

Sparx snorted. "It sounds funny when you say it."

Ignitus glared at the dragonfly. "To paraphrase a retort: bite me." He cleared his throat and continued. "Spyro, do you remember when the Elders took Malefor?"

"Yes," Spyro said. The memory ran through his head. The five Elders had manifested from the air, their spirits like pearled mists. Spyro and Cynder had weakened Malefor enough for the Elders to bind him and drag him down into Avalar.

Something about that memory struck Spyro. A connection came to him. "The tremors...Ignitus, do you think Malefor's spirit could be causing them?"

Ignitus thought about that. "It's possible, though the aftermath of his destruction cannot be ignored." He further contemplated the idea. "Perhaps he can be drawn out of Avalar?"

"I think so," Spyro said. "That's the only place I imagine he would be. But what about the Elders? How would we bring them?"

"Simple," Ignitus said. "You're taking their prisoner. Naturally they'll go after him."

Spyro didn't like the sound of that. "Will they be hostile?"

"Against you? No, but expect questioning. If they know what's good for them they'll assist."

Spyro nodded. Something else donned on him: the matter of summoning Malefor, a knowledge that Spryo and Cynder shared but didn't embrace. Their exposure to Malefor had tainted them, had resonated within them. Deep down they knew Malefor, had tasted the power he offered. For the past two years they strove to distance themselves from that evil, to embrace a new life.

They would have to summon their Others. Cynder rested her cheek on Spyro's chest. Spyro embraced her, his chin atop her head.

Ignitus asked, "What's wrong?"

Spyro kissed Cynder's forehead, and his paw lightly squeezed her nape. He said to Ignitus, "Suppose it's our turn for revelations."

Ignitus knitted his brow. "What do you mean?"

Spyro and Cynder turned towards the Chronicler. Cynder said, "We know how to summon Malefor."

Ignitus' eyes shifted between Spyro and Cynder. "Both of you? How?"

Spyro dipped deeper into that well of strength, the reserves shallower. "We've been exposed to his power. We were nearby when Malefor's essence came into Avalar."

Ignitus' eyes widened. "No...Spyro, Cynder, I don't want you getting in touch with that. We can find another way, we can-"

"Ignitus," Cynder said, her countenance weary. "We can't let fear dictate our actions."

Ignitus silenced himself, the words like blows. "Yes...suppose you're right. I just pray you two can return from that state."

"We will," Cynder consoled. "It's not our first time controlling it. For now it's the quickest way."

Ignitus inwardly cursed his own impetuosity. He hadn't realized the price. "Our time dwindles." He nodded at the dragons.

Spyro turned to Sparx and Haedrig. "Keep your distance. Haedrig, if you have anything sensitive to magic then you best get it out of here."

Haedrig spread his arms in helplessness. "I've shown you all I have. I can't predict how the bones will react."

Spyro's heart fluttered. "Alright then." He brushed his muzzle against Cynder's ear. "Nothing left."

Cynder gave an airy, sad laugh. "Of all things."

Their smiles faded as they focused. They closed their eyes. Ignitus, Haedrig, and Sparx watched as the dragons' breathing slowed, became imperceptible. The three waited in silence, their own breathing shallow with dread.

The bell tolled and swung. The lights from the crystals dimmed. Ignitus' image was nearly extinguished. With a force of will he rekindled the connection between him and the crystal. He couldn't leave Spyro and Cynder. Not again.

The tolling deadened to a drone, the room barely alight with the glow of the crystals. Shadows slithered into the light, quivering tendrils that sought their callers. The dragons' lips parted as susurrations played upon their tongues. More blackened veins undulated through the light, and their tips shivered as they snaked towards the two.

Sparx made a dash towards them. "Spyro! You're taking it too far! Snap out of it!"

Haedrig barely managed to catch him. "Leave them be! Don't break their concentration!"

"And how would you know?" Sparx snarled as he fought Haedrig's grasp.

"Just trust them! They at least gave me that!"

Sparx eased his struggles and turned his head away. He didn't want to watch the things crawling towards the dragons. It sickened him, seeing Malefor's influence brought to life within his brother and friend.

The tendrils breached the distance, and their oil-slick bodies wound up Spyro and Cynder. The dragons' scales blackened at their touch. Deadened blue light wisped off the two, created a halo of haze as the tendrils wrapped around their heads.

The darkness choked the room the mineral tang replaced by something both pungent and sweet. The dragons opened their eyes: brilliant albicant slits that illuminated the churning tendrils on the ground.

The bell's ringing deepened as a stygian paw reached up through the nigrescent veins. Another paw breached upward, and its ebon claws latched onto the floor as the creature pulled itself up, its head crowned with five sweeping horns, its ember-eyes narrowed at Spyro and Cynder. It pulled the rest of its aphotic form from the depths, its sinuous body hunched.

Malefor.

His voice guttural voice encompassed them. "My seeds have found purchase." He met eyes with Spyro and Cynder. A muffled chuckle came from him. "And to think I doubted you." He looked back. His burning eyes widened. He said urgently, "There isn't much time. They'll be coming for me. You've stretched their ties thin. You can break them. I can show you-"

"Nothing left," Cynder said.

Malefor craned his head towards her. "What?"

Spyro and Cynder reverted to their normal forms, and the tendrils receded into the corners and cracks as the crystals' glow overcame the dark. Malefor became as a phantasm amongst the light, his features shadowed, indistinct. He backpedaled from them. "Why...why did you summon me? Why am I here?"

He slithered towards them, his eyes incandescent. "_ANSWER ME!_"

Spyro and Cynder didn't flinch. Haedrig crouched in a corner, watched with terrified awe. Sparx, however, had long fainted.

Malefor brought his paws up and rammed the ground. Crepuscular plumes erupted and briefly snuffled out the crystals' light. "_Do not trifle with me. Help me now or you'll be the one dealing with the Elders._"

Resentment dripped from Cynder's words. "That was the whole point."

Malefor shook his head at them. "Then why summon me? What are you playing at?"

"You'll see," Cynder said, her eyes cold as she glared up at him.

Malefor became desperate. "There isn't much time! You can still release me from them! Just..." Effulgent coils sprung from the ceiling and wrapped around his extremities. The coils yanked him off his fours and suspended his thrashing supine body, his roaring hysteric.

The Elders subtly arrived. They borrowed light from the crystals' glow, their forms more opaque with each step as they encircled Spyro and Cynder.

Spyro and Cynder stood their ground as they beheld the Elders. The draconic spirits were both young and old, with only deep set wrinkles around their eyes to indicate age, their musculature still taut. The one in front of Spyro bore a mohawk fin, his horns curving like that of a ram. "Spyro," he said with the air of a stern guardian, "do you realize the price for summoning him?"

"I do," Spyro replied. "A world worse without him."

The Elder canted his head. "A world worse...You're referring to The Black Star, aren't you?"

"I am."

"And how can you be so certain of its power?"

Spyro pointed up at Malefor, who struggled to squelch his cries. "The purple dragons were supposed to be the epitome of power. Look at what The Black Star drove him to."

The Elder wasn't moved. "Young dragon, the only reason we haven't ripped your spirit from your body is because of the sacrifice you've already given. We're not sure how you knew about our binding with Malefor, but if this was deliberate, then you had best give a good reason _why._"

Ignitus spoke from behind them. "Guntram. I gave them the idea."

The Elders turned around and faced the tuning crystal. The lead Elder, Guntram, narrowed his eyes in disbelief. "Chronicler?"

Ignitus nodded. "I would not have arranged this if I didn't feel we were in grave danger. I helped Spyro and Cynder in defeating Malefor, gave my life to protect them. Do you really think I'd help bring Malefor back because I missed his company?"

Guntram's eyes wandered through reasoning. "Us...You want us to help bring this _thing_..." He splayed his paw up at Malefor, the dark dragon reduced to pained squealing as his binds flashed and crackled. "Back to life?"

Ignitus remained resolute. "We need his knowledge."

"For the sake of defeating this Black Star?"

"Let's not delude ourselves," Ignitus asserted. "We know he's a threat. You were Malefor's mentors. Was humbleness ever a part of Malefor's character? If anything he's the type to raze us from existence than lose, as proven evident by his past actions. The Black Star buckled him, drove him to fatalism. If we put him into a new body he'll be able to look at his memories objectively, without a mind rooted in madness."

Guntram's eyes wandered again. He looked to the other Elders and nodded. They returned the nod, and with a flick of their wrists Malefor dropped from the air and landed on his back, where he weakly writhed.

Guntram turned to Spyro. "Malefor's spirit is only here because we deem it so. Without our power his being will diffuse." He let out an agitated grunt. "There will be conditions to his resurrection."

Spyro asked, "Conditions?"

"Mostly for Malefor. You're familiar with how the spirit and body melds?"

Spyro nodded. "It would be more like reincarnation: the spirit in a new body."

"Essentially." Guntram ran his paw down his muzzle. "We can do this, but we'll need a base." He looked around Haedrig's chamber, at the skulls within the alcoves. "Who owns this domicile?"

Haedrig wet his lips and stepped forward. "I do."

The Elders spun towards the mole, their stares heated. Guntram craned his head down, his eyes into Haedrig's. "Why do you keep our dead?"

Haedrig ordered himself not to step back. "I don't do it for triviality's sake. I was trying to understand, trying to help. There was no one to ask and no one to claim their dead."

Guntram kept his eyes locked on Haedrig's. "Is there another reason why we shouldn't kill you for this?"

A surge of fear and anger went through Haedrig. "You think I'd turn down an opportunity to help our saviors, the only reason why Avalar's still here? Not helping would be a death-offense in its own right!" He remembered that he was talking to a revered dragon. "Uh...no offense."

Guntram's stare intensified. He smirked. "A proverbial 'damned if one does or doesn't.'"

Haedrig was bemused by that. "Uh...I suppose." Guntram turned from him. Haedrig kept himself from sagging in relief.

Guntram walked back to Malefor, who lay still upon the floor. The lead Elder patronized him. "They want you back, Malefor. Do you accept?"

Malefor stirred. He rose on one arm, his sepulchral eyes at Spyro and Cynder. "You want to bring me back?"

Cynder answered, "It's not out of affection, Malefor. We can send you right back."

Malefor turned his head up at Guntram. The glow of his eyes dimmed. "I accept the resurrection."

Guntram grunted. "Of course you would." He beckoned the other Elders towards them with a tilt of his head. They surrounded Malefor and sat on their haunches, their brows knitted. Guntram called to Haedrig, "You! Bring me all the bones you can spare, as many correlating parts as you can."

Haedrig was confused by that. "Correlating?"

"Skull to the spine to the ribcage to the arm: you don't need every bone, but the more complete the easier this will be."

Haedrig cringed. "I'm...I'm going to make his skeleton? But the bones are so different. Even if I were to complete it he'd still be deformed."

Guntram impatiently shook his head. "Keenly observed, except it will not be his final form. This will be a base, nothing more."

"But why the completion?"

Haedrig's curiosity both pleased and annoyed Guntram. The lead Elder said, "In this case it's more a matter of quantity, more essence. _We_ can shape Malefor's vessel. The bones' totality triggers a quicker image." He examined Spyro and Cynder, his visage pensive. "Malefor will not be brought to his prior strength, physically or magically. His knowledge of The Black Star, unsullied by insanity, is the only reason we are bringing him back."

He looked to Haedrig. "Bring us the bones."

Haedrig obeyed with a quick nod and ran off into the third chamber to the right. Malefor's head was canted down, his flickering form hunched over. Spyro wondered what was going through the dragon's mind. It was strange, seeing Malefor this subdued. Spyro remembered when his presence struck terror into his heart, arrested his every muscle.

Now Malefor waited in obedient silence. The dragon was cunning, however. Perhaps he knew that his defiance would only interfere with his resurrection, despite the drawbacks. Regardless, Spyro and Cynder would give him nothing.

Haedrig worked with steady swiftness, the lean mole's breathing lightly labored as he carried the bones back and forth. Within half an hour he arranged a rough assembly of a dragon's skeleton, though the bones were disproportional. "I'm glad I organized these," he said with a huff. "Never thought I'd use them for something like this."

Guntram nodded in approval. "Good. Now I advise you all to stand back. This will not be...pleasant."

Spyro and Cynder obeyed. Spyro walked over to Sparx and picked up his unconscious form. He hoped the dragonfly wouldn't stir. Haedrig followed Cynder to the end of the room. Spyro followed after them. He stopped and turned towards the Elders. "What about Ignitus? Will the tuning crystal be affected?"

Guntram shrugged. "We're not certain, though Ignitus has every right to witness this. As a Chronicler he needs to bear heed to Malefor's resurrection."

Ignitus grimly bore the task. "Let's finish it then."

Guntram curled his lip at Ignitus, the urge unwelcomed. With a mental hitch and jerk he refocused on Malefor, the shadowy dragon prostrate. It satisfied him to see Malefor in such a state of weakness.

"Towards the bones. Now."

Malefor obeyed, his head down. He stood above the skeleton. His limbs straightening and his eyes lost all light. Despite Malefor's lack of features, something about his movement disturbed Spyro. Spyro whispered to Cynder, "He looks like he's bracing himself."

Again, Cynder was apathetic. "Guntram said it wouldn't be pleasant."

Spyro's scales rose. "Yes. He did, didn't he?" He swallowed. He didn't know what to expect. Haedrig stood next to him, his arms crossed against his chest. The chill from the Elders pervaded the room.

The Elders bored their sight into Malefor.

Malefor screamed and crumpled to his side, and his shadow conformed to the bones' arrangement. The Elders' stares followed him down, their faces etched with concentration. Malefor's black spirit wavered, and the bones rattled as his spectral body seeped into them.

The bell shrilled, the light from the crystals blinding. Malefor's essence ebbed into the bones, and from them came sanguine marrow and twines of tendon and sinew. The Elders didn't flinch as Malefor thrashed, his howls erratic as beads of blood flew through the light: black droplets within the light. The body tissue came next, translucent and glistening before the pigmentation washed over him. Pale skin rippled over his musculature, the preparation for his scales.

Amber orbs bloomed within the sockets of his skull, and his pupils dilated in pain. Aubergine scales grew forth from his tail and spread up his body. The tips pierced the skin and settled upon the flesh in perfect symmetry, and from the overlaps came rivulets of blood. Arrowhead plates sprouted from his neck, chest and underbelly and curved inward, merged with his scales.

Malefor put his paws to his skull, and his crimson-smeared body curled into a fetal position, his mouth agape in agonized silence as his gums sprouted fangs. Blood-streaked horns grew from his head and down the back of his neck, and the scales rasped against the protracting bones.

He gave a final shriek, his body in spasms. The bell's shrilling ceased. The glow from the crystals dimmed. Spyro, Cynder, and Haedrig released their held breaths. Spyro checked on Sparx, the dragonfly well at rest despite the macabre scene, something Spyro was grateful for.

The dragons and mole approached the Elders, who parted from their path. Malefor trembled as saliva stretched from his jaws, his pupils round and glazed. Spyro asked, "What's wrong with him?"

Guntram observed Malefor, his words stolid. "He is in pain."

Even Cynder's callousness towards Malefor waned. "All the growth pains at once?"

Guntram nodded. "Imagine the pain of incoming teeth or crookedly grown talons, exposed wounds or misset bones. More importantly, imagine the most adherent parts of your spirit stripped away, like the loss of a loved one or a death sentence. Malefor experienced that holistically."

Haedrig approached with cautious steps. He nervously scratched his chin. "How long will he be like this, you think?"

Guntram canted his head down at Malefor. "No more than a day. There were no complications with his resurrection." He leaned towards Spyro, his voice low. "He is in your care now, questionable as said care is."

Haedrig scampered around Malefor. His eyes widened at the unused wing bones. "His wings! You forgot them!"

Guntram gave the bones a bored glance. "No. I didn't."

A shiver went through Spyro. "You...you took his flight?"

"I did," Guntram said, his reasoning dispassionate. "He didn't appreciate the gift of flight before, hellbent as he was to end life. Perhaps this will enlighten him to the concept of loss."

The idea of a wingless existence filled Spyro with a deep despondence. He couldn't imagine life bound by land. A small part of him hoped Malefor wouldn't remember what he would miss.

Guntram and the other Elders turned away from the scene. Spyro stopped them. "Wait! Is that it? What about you all? How are you going to help with The Black Star?"

Guntram's eyes shifted over to Malefor and back to Spyro. "We already have." They walked back into the crystals' glow. Their bodies merged with the luminescence.

Spyro sneered and turned his attention to Malefor. The dark dragon's nearness disconcerted him. He made several observations about Malefor's new form. Malefor was only slightly larger than Spyro, his musculature slightly thinner, the angles of his face less jagged, more youthful, his gauntness balanced by softer scales. The horns on his head and down his back were smaller, but proportionately so.

Spyro wondered how Malefor's old psyche would settle into his new body. He pondered the malleability of the dragon's mind, if he could somehow be changed. Spyro scoffed at that. The burden of Malefor's madness was heavy, something both he and Cynder had tasted. He doubted such a weight could be shucked so easily.

Cynder pulled Spyro from his reverie. "I never thought it would be like this."

Spyro asked, "Like what?"

Cynder gave a slight shake of her head. "All of this. Needing Malefor and seeing what it took."

"Do you feel sorry for him?" The question was honest, a reflection of his own thoughts.

Cynder was quiet for a moment. "That's yet to be seen."

Ignitus' voice came from behind them. "Dragons..." Spyro, Cynder, and Haedrig turned towards the tuning crystal. Ignitus said bitterly, "I'm sorry you had to see that. I want to say this all went well..." He grunted. "Pairing something positive to this seems beyond me right now." His eyes wandered over to Malefor. "Despite his evil I wouldn't want anyone to go through that."

Haedrig nodded. "Can't help but feel a little sorry for him myself. Might feel differently in a day, but..." He thinned his lips and changed the subject. His stomach churned as he took in the aftermath. "Need to this blood cleaned up." He tapped his chin. "I'm hesitant to do this, but I can expose him to one of my healing crystals just long enough to take the edge off."

Spyro mulled over that. "We're talking about healing a dragon that tried to burn our world to ashes." He looked over at Malefor again. A small moan came from the dark dragon. His body quivered and his limbs jerked, as if the very air prodded him. Spyro turned to Haedrig and nodded. "Take the edge off. No one should have to go through that."

Haedrig nodded and hurried off towards the third chamber. Spyro looked to Cynder, the dragoness deep in her brooding. He asked her, "Are you alright?"

Cynder nodded, her countenance rigid. Spyro tested the waters. He put his arm around her neck and pressed his muzzle to her cheek. She was reluctant at first, but it didn't take her long to reciprocate the affection.

Ignitus asked them, "What did you mean earlier by 'nothing left'?"

Cynder gave Spyro a knowing look. The memory unfurled from time. Cynder said to Ignitus, "During our fight with Malefor, I turned. He triggered my Other. It wasn't that I had lost myself, but all the negative aspects: my hatred, spite, belligerence, took over. Malefor turned me against Spyro."

Ignitus asked Spyro, "What did you do?"

Spyro shrugged in defeat. "I had lost so much already." He looked over at Malefor. Haedrig brought a red quasicrystal to the dragon's chest. Within moments Malefor's shivering eased, and his eyelids sagged as a sigh came from him. Spyro gave Haedrig a grateful smile, who nodded in return.

Spyro said to Ignitus, "I'd reached perdition then. I don't like admitting it, but at that point there was nothing. Combatively I was done for; there was no way I could fight both Cynder and Malefor. But it wasn't just the odds. Cynder and I had grown attached to each other, and when Malefor took her he took my will with it. She asked me, 'Why won't you fight back?'"

He grew silent at that, the spiritual debacle a tender scar. "I said 'there was nothing left to fight for.'"

His somberness left him when he took in Cynder's gaze. "But once she heard that it brought her back, released her from Malefor." He chuckled at the irony. "That's why we say that. Not even the lowest point can separate us."

Ignitus' smile touched his eyes. "Love through perdition. I can think of no greater test."

Spyro regarded Malefor. The dark dragon was asleep, his breathing weak. Spyro held Cynder closer to him. "I'm hoping so."


	4. Chapter 4

Ignitus' image flickered, his weary sight upon Malefor's resting form. He said to Spyro and Cynder, "Some part of me is happy that you all have control. You've been subjected to circumstance for too long. But this..." A slight shake of his head. "Entails a greater responsibility."

Cynder looked upon Malefor. "I wouldn't call it responsibility. A vigil, maybe."

Ignitus asked, "Vigil for what?"

"His defiance."

Ignitus mouthed, "Ah." He said in a cautionary voice, "A cause can fade one's self, not to mention past connections." He directed his words towards Cynder. "Remember what made you the way you are, and look at it from where you are now."

Cynder asked, "What do you mean?"

"You're not a subject, Cynder. You've bloomed so much despite the adversity. Don't let your past hate skew your reasoning."

An emerald glow flashed across Cynder's irises. "I won't, Ignitus. I remember all too well."

Ignitus took that with a nod. "I'll leave you to this burden then. Just remember that I'm always here to lighten it."

Cynder winced and smiled, her eyes closed. "Thank you, Ignitus."

Spyro neared the tuning crystal, his visage both wan and warm. "I needed to hear from you. It helps, it really does."

Ignitus gave him a light chuckle. "Likewise, Spyro. Keep in touch." His eyes shifted to Haedrig. "You too. You're a greater help than you realize."

Haedrig barely restrained his pride. "It took a dragon to realize that, and from a Chronicler no less. We'll talk again when everything's saner."

Ignitus nodded in agreement. "Until next time." His image faded from the tuning crystal, left only a glimmer upon the crystal's matte surface.

Haedrig curled his fingers, his head askew as he stared at Malefor. He turned to Spyro. "Guntram said no longer than a day, right?"

"Yes," Spyro said. "We don't know how he'll react when he comes out of it. It would be better if Cynder and I were near when that happens." He glanced over at Cynder, who offered no dissent despite her rigid frown.

Haedrig took that with a nod. "Understood. You two would be the best to restrain him." He looked back to Malefor, his hand to his chin. "Strange. I thought he would be bigger."

Spyro joined Haedrig in his observation. "He was. Before he wouldn't have fit in this home."

Haedrig crossed his arms and stepped closer to Spyro. "Well, if you handled him then you can handle him now."

Spyro nodded. "It's getting him to talk that will be the challenge." He looked down at the mole. "Do you have other work at hand? Don't let us keep you."

Haedrig snorted. "There are three dragons in my home. What am I going to do? Trim the hedges?"

Spyro shrugged. "You'll have to go up eventually."

"True, true." He patted Spyro's forearm. "I'll be up for a bit. I'd ask if you wanted something but I doubt it'd be enough to feed you."

Spyro grinned wryly at the offer. "Don't worry about us." Sparx rumbled a snore from atop Spyro's back. The dragon's upper lip stiffened. "Though a gag for Sparx would be great." A rhythmic gurgle accentuated the dragonfly's snoring. Spyro shook his head. "So majestic."

Haedrig chuckled at that. He looked up at the sleeping dragonfly atop Spyro's back. "I have a thought...request, if you will."

"What is it?"

Haedrig's hand returned to his chin. "Perhaps it would be best if Sparx came up with me."

Spyro gave Malefor a fleeting look. "Agreed. And the request?"

Haedrig tapped his chin. "I may need him for something. Those hands of his: more deft than you think, especially with small components."

The remark surprised Spyro. "Never would have imagined Sparx getting into something like that."

"Oh yes," Haedrig said with a hint of approval. "Being with you two I'd imagine he would seek a way to help. Not the apprentice I was expecting, mind you, but a boon nonetheless."

Spyro beamed. "I'm glad to hear it, though I hope he won't hold it against me." He lowered himself onto his belly and allowed Haedrig to take him. A streak of worry went through Spyro. "Be careful with him, please."

Cynder allayed his apprehension. "Spyro, stop being a mother. Haedrig will be careful." There was a playful tone to her voice. "Won't you, Haedrig?"

"Of course!" The idea of harm mortified the mole. "He'll be fine, I assure you." He made his way towards the stairs with Sparx cradled in his gloves. "I'll be in earshot."

Wanly, Spyro smirked as his sight followed Haedrig out. He addressed Cynder, the dragoness' attention to Malefor. Her emotions shifted. She vented in slow fumes from her flared nostrils, her eyes narrowed. The abruptness disturbed Spyro. He pressed his shoulder against hers, his voice low. "I need you to calm down. I need your head clear if we're going to deal with him."

Cynder eyed him from the side, her slow breathing unchanged. "That's what I'm trying to do." She returned her sight to Malefor. "I know he may not be the same. I'm trying to tell myself that."

Spyro shared Cynder's vigil over Malefor. "Not to sound like the jealous type, but do you really think staring at him is going to help?"

"I'm going to have to get used to him, whatever he'll be like when he wakes up." She thinned her lips. A ragged breath escaped from her. "It's hard to put the memories aside. I'm trying, I really am."

Spyro nestled himself closer to her. "Just remember that you're not alone, alright?"

Cynder gave him a small smile. "I know."

"Let's try to relax." He lied on his belly. "I'm going to do this thing where I pretend I don't care and talk about really frivolous stuff. Like how pretty this floor is."

Cynder's anger broke, and a laugh bubbled from her as she joined Spyro. Spyro went on. "I think I'm going to make you a poem."

"Oh no."

"Cynder..." He gazed up at her. "Your eyes are the color of floor, your tail a siren of purple desire."

"You're bent!" Cynder said through her paw, "I can't believe you. You're making me laugh even after everything that's happened."

Spyro shrugged. "There's always going to be gloom and doom. You can at least choose how to accept it."

She smiled down at him. "I'm taller than you."

"See? You're getting the hang of it." He grinned and muttered, "Bitch."

Cynder's jaw dropped. She swatted him lightly across the temple. "Don't you call me that."

"Call 'em how I see 'em."

The two dragons stifled their laughter. They rested their heads on their paws, their attention to Malefor. Spyro asked, "You're not going to kill him when he wakes, right?"

"Mm. No. Maybe." Spyro cocked an eyebrow at her. Cynder relented. "No, no. Ignitus is rarely wrong when it comes to these things. We'd be able to restrain him if he tried anything."

Spyro's brow furrowed as he thought. "Something's odd about this."

Cynder harrumphed. "Catch on quick, don't you?"

"Serious moment, bear with me." A brief silence. "Why would he want to come back?"

"Why wouldn't he?"

"The Black Star."

Cynder mulled over that. "He knew about him before his resurrection."

"Exactly, which tells me two things."

"Which are?"

"One, he wasn't receptive to how close it is, or two..."

Cynder waited for the answer. "And?"

"He didn't care if he risked death again."

The implication disturbed Cynder. "The Elders. The way Guntram treated him."

Spyro nodded. "He wanted a respite from them, I think." He winced as a notion came to him. "They're the ones that trapped him in Convexity. I'm not saying Malefor's innocent in this, but they may have had a hand in making him what he is."

Cynder's vision strayed towards Malefor. "I don't think they bound him just because of his ability. They may have seen something that disturbed them."

"But to bind him? Don't you think that's harsh?"

"Who are we talking about?" Cynder's tone sharpened. "A troubled youth or the one that tried to end us? I haven't even brought up my experience with him." She locked eyes with Spyro. "I don't expect you to understand, nor do I want you to. You right wrongs, even in the wrongdoer. I'll always admire that about you, but keep in mind who we're dealing with."

Spyro took the words with a nod. "But we don't know who to expect when he wakes up. He'll be a soul partitioned from his past. We might be able to guide him through that."

The dragoness mulled over that. "Instinct takes us to what we know."

"Knew," Spyro gently said. "In his case."

Cynder gave a slight sigh. "Alright. Let's leave the bypass for now. At this point I'd rather you start your poetry again."

A beat of thought. Spyro whispered, "Your emerald eyes are like angrily frolicking orbs of sensual glee."

Cynder canted her head down at him. "You don't quit, do you?"

"Nay."

Cynder gave him another playful swat before she laid her chin on her paws. The two fell into silence. Malefor's chest slowly rose and fell as he slept.

{{}}

Fatigue crept up on Spyro. The room blurred, and his consciousness receded from his surroundings. Indistinct images formed and passed, weaved in and out of his awareness.

Clairvoyance. A figure stood in front of him, swathed in tattered, sullied rags, its face obscured by a cowl. Its exposed arms were taut, fists clenched. Its arm rose its fist uncurled. He pointed behind Spyro.

Whimpering echoed throughout the room. Spyro turned around.

Deformed limbs scuttled towards him. The thing's head tossed as it squealed. Its maw gaped with misplaced fangs, its eyes as sockets. Its jaws encompassed Spyro's head before the creature vanished. Spyro reeled, his breathing quick, tremulous.

Malefor sat in the creature's place, his head downcast. Spyro questioned his own consciousness. "Cynder! Cynder, get up."

"I've been up, Spyro." Cynder sat next to him. "You faded on me. I had to wake you."

Spyro struggled for words, for clear thinking. "Just had a lucid dream, I think."

"Is that why you panicked?"

"Yeah. I think so."

"Think so?"

"Nevermind." Spyro tilted his head up at Malefor. "How long has he been like that?"

"A few minutes. Hasn't said anything. Just got up and started staring."

Spyro asked softly, "Think we should try talking to him?"

"_You saw him._"

Spyro and Cynder pivoted towards the dark dragon, who's visage remained downcast, the amber of his eyes as slits. "You saw him."

Spyro swallowed and wet his lips. "The Black Star?"

"_Him._" Malefor's deep voice displaced the air. "We're the ones he's interested in."

"So you remember that much?"

"I remember everything and care nothing."

Spyro questioned him further. "Our fight? How you tried to end Avalar?"

"The turncoat you took." Malefor raised his head. His eyes wandered to Cynder. "Hello, dearest traitor. I hope he's treating you well."

Spyro raised his arm in front of Cynder, the dragoness' teeth bared. Spyro abated his own rising ire. "Everything seems intact then. You know why you're here?"

Malefor leered at Spyro. His lips slowly parted. "Which reason do you want? Yours or mine?"

"_Ours,_" Cynder snarled, "is the only option you have."

"Ours...," Malefor smirked. "Why poppet, in front of your mate? A tryst would have been far more discreet."

Spyro held Cynder back. A plume of acidic breath escaped from her. It settled and bubbled upon the floor, the dragoness' muzzle furrowed. "Talk to me like that again and I'll send you back to the Elders in pieces."

Malefor took the spurn in stride. "Fair enough reaction."

Spyro rubbed Cynder's back, the dragoness' anger soothed by his touch. He continued his talk with Malefor. "So is this how you were before The Black Star?"

A shadow of somberness pulled Malefor's visage. "There is no before with him. The Elders may have swept the slate clean, but he'll descend upon us soon enough."

"That's not what I'm saying," Spyro said. "I didn't start feeling the Black Star's presence until recently. He had time to corrupt you, but before then you were you."

Malefor scoffed at that. "I was I...Sense of self you're driving at? I suppose there was a time when I didn't worry about that prophecy nonsense." He chuckled a little. "Such a small view our scribes had."

Spyro sat on his haunches: a gesture of neutrality. "Ignitus told me as much. They ignored you when you talked about The Black Star."

Resent flowed through Malefor's words. "Vehemently so. I was just a clamoring little attention harlot to them, bent as they were to test the limits of my power. They became rather perturbed by the lack of said limits. Create a force of nature and then lock it away, never mind the already fraying sanity." He flashed them a grin. "Brilliant minds."

"Not an issue right now," Spyro pressed. "You're here, they're not. We need to know more about The Black Star."

Malefor scoffed again. "More? Really? You'll be knowing him personally soon enough."

A gout of flame bellowed from Spyro's maw. Malefor flinched and shielded his eyes. Spyro's patience dwindled. "I know _that._ You know The Black Star intimately. He's the one that drove you to genocide, took you from yourself. This is your chance to look at that objectively, without a failing mind."

Malefor knitted his brow. Spyro said, "Forget our rivalry. You have someone willing to listen."

Malefor grunted in compliance. "No harm at this point, is there?" He gathered his thoughts. "The Black Star is old, but not necessarily by time. Someone can age faster in the mind while time leaves its definitive mark on the body. He has perceived more than we could ever hope for, or against considering his..._demeanor._"

"Demeanor?"

Malefor's features sagged as he recalled. "A literal black star, amongst its brighter brethren, is a void. All-hungry, all-consuming. He used to be that simple, not so different from my previous intentions. He gained his power through death, sacrifice."

"Sacrifice of what?"

Malefor's brow etched deeper. "Worlds. Innumerable lives."

"But how? Who gave him this power?"

Malefor canted his head to the side."He had a lot of names for them: The Great Liars, Thieves, Murderers. Outcasts beyond flesh. He told me the first world he sacrificed."

"What was it?"

The blue crystal above Malefor pulsed, his face gaunt in shadow. "He called it Earth."

Spyro mouthed, "Earth." He asked, "Is that why he appears the way he does?"

Malefor nodded. "That was his first 'mantle', as he likes to call it."

"But how did he get the power to destroy his world? And why?"

Malefor smirked. "His people had weapons of great power, weapons capable of destroying all life. He and others were responsible over this power. The Outcasts came to him, offered him power beyond his flesh if he sacrificed Earth. He took their offer and orchestrated a great burning. In turn the Outcasts took him from Earth, made him their own."

The idea of others like The Black Star unnerved Spyro. "What about the other Outcasts? What happened to them?"

"That," Malefor said with a wan laugh, "is how The Black Star came to power. The Outcasts liked his 'work'. He entertained them at first, willing as he was to watch other worlds like his burn. They gave him incremental power to do so, and for a very long time he was their underling."

"Didn't the Outcasts realize that he was growing more powerful?"

"Ah," Malefor said with a hint of admiration. "He never let out till it was too late. You see, The Black Star himself didn't initially realize how strong he had become. After awhile he was no longer content with physical destruction. The idea of consuming, destroying, became an art to him, one he lost himself to. The power given him to by the Outcasts were just tools to him, ways to meet his end. Even the Outcasts lost themselves to his work, voyeuristic as they were."

The story sunk into Spyro, the knowledge black, viscous. "What was the catalyst?"

"They became tired of watching. The Black Star didn't want to share."

"And then?"

"He overpowered them, consumed them."

Another question nagged Spyro. "Did The Black Star ask you to burn Avalar?"

A thick silence. The words dripped from Malefor, slow and reluctant. "No. It was best to burn then to rot."

Spyro didn't delve into the reasoning. Instead, he asked, "How did he come to you? In dreams? Visions?"

"Both," Malefor said, his mind deep within the recollection. "The senses as one. Most of the time it was too much information to understand. Too fast. But I think he knew that."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because sometimes he would draw it out, let me _taste_ what he had in store." Malefor grimaced, his eyes squeezed shut. "I didn't want that. So little left of me as it was." His voice became wet, rattled. "We were alike. Maybe that's why he influenced me so easily. He knew me, except I failed where he succeeded."

"Different circumstances."

Spyro's words struck Malefor. "What do you mean?"

"The Black Star innately lived up to his name. He had the hunger well before the Outcasts." Malefor stared. His eyelids tensed as a smile crawled across his muzzle. Spyro asked, "Why are you smiling?"

"You said 'innate'. The word amuses me."

"Why?"

"Because old habits die hard. Mine are a memory away."

Cynder spat a thread of acid at Malefor. The dark dragon snarled and covered his face as the venom ate at his torso and left smoking black threads. Cynder's scales raised, and a guttural sonance pervaded the room. Spyro's scales rose in response. Fear's essence laced itself throughout her growling, another element the dragoness possessed.

Cynder stepped forward, her husky contralto rasped. "_Then you had best forget them, lest you take their place._"

Malefor gnashed his teeth at the dragoness, his panting heavy. "You're lucky I don't have my powers back."

"They didn't save you before."

Malefor clenched his teeth. "Mind your mouth, bitch."

"Whelp."

Malefor roared and lunged at her. Spyro intercepted and slung him to the ground, his clawed paw against Malefor's neck. The scales broke with a snap. Beads of blood sprung from the punctures. Spyro brought his muzzle to Malefor's, his eyes wide and his voice calm. "I am being very patient with you. I am the only one in this world to have given you this much grace. My grace is not bottomless. Try me again and I will give you to Cynder, and I assure you, she will repay your cruelty in ways I cannot."

Spyro shoved his face to the side and released him. Malefor scrabbled to his fours and skulked to the corner, his brow and muzzle etched with fury. From upstairs came Haedrig's scampering. The mole darted down the stairs and into the room. "What is it? What's the...Ah."

Malefor turned his head to Haedrig. The dragon's hateful grimace deepened. "Oh look: the food grew legs."

Haedrig's revolver blurred from his holster to his hand, the barrel embedded with incandescent, faceted gems. "I'm not edible, lizard, and you're not at full strength. Were it not for Spyro you'd be in a lot more pain, so you'd best show some respect."

Malefor snorted at Haedrig. "What? Or you'll shoot me?"

Haedrig cocked the hammer. "I'm taking requests."

Spyro intervened. "Enough!" He turned to Haedrig. "You've helped us plenty already. We'll take him off your hands."

Haedrig holstered his revolver as his glare lingered on Malefor. He said to Spyro, "From what it sounds like I've only begun to help. My hammer and arm are always available to you. Don't hesitate to ask."

Cynder heartened upon those words. "Thank you. We'll keep in touch."

"Please." Haedrig gave them a parting smile and ascended the stairs.

Spyro took that as their cue. He beckoned Cynder and Malefor. "C'mon. We're done here."

Cynder followed Spyro out. She cast a scornful look back at Malefor, a silent command. With a sneer Malefor followed her. They made their way up the stairs and into the kitchen. They were in the main room when Cynder remarked, "Mind your eyes before you find yourself one short."

Malefor sucked his teeth. "I'd never deign to disrespect you so." A glint of metal caught his attention.

Haedrig had his revolver out. "You heard her."

Malefor took in Haedrig's overalls and thickly gloved hands, the revolver half the size of the mole. "Ballsy little shit, aren't you?"

"Get out of my house."

Malefor stepped towards Haedrig. Cynder's tail whipped out and smacked the dragon's face. Malefor, thin-lipped with rage, rumbled a curse and left the home with Spyro and Cynder. "So what now? We have a nice sit down? Plan our next move?"

Spyro ignored Malefor's belligerence. "We're going to see my Elders. Terrador and the others need to know what's going on. Our cave's on the way. I'm guessing hunger's going to hit you at some point. There's always game to be found around there if you're willing to look."

Spyro and Cynder began the trek, their footfalls brisk. Malefor stopped them. "What are you doing?"

Spyro turned back to him. "What do you mean?"

"Why aren't we flying?"

Cynder sided herself next to Spyro. The two exchanged a glance. Cynder asked, "Why are you asking that?"

"What do you mean 'why are you asking that'? To think you two cretins defeated me..."

Spyro staunched him. "Malefor. You don't have any wings."

Malefor huffed a laugh. "What are you talking about? I felt them just..." His incredulity unraveled. He blinked. His left arm traveled to his shoulder blade. "I felt them..." A trembling breath escaped from him. "I felt them. The wind..." He raised a splayed paw into the air. "There's wind. Why can't I feel them, it was there and now it's gone why is it gone..."

Spyro approached Malefor, his tone condolent. "Malefor..."

"_What did they do to me?_" Malefor tossed his head from side to side. "I felt them, I felt them and now they're gone..."

"Malefor," Spyro persisted gently. "It's called 'phantom limb'. Your wings are probably your spirit's deepest memory, enough to influence your new body. It's something amputee victims suffer."

Malefor quivered. He blinked back his tears. "Guntram did this, didn't he?"

Spyro gave him a slow nod. "I'm sorry."

Malefor's paws clenched the soil. His body rocked for a moment, his jaws clenched. With a long sigh he tilted his head back, his eyes shut.

Spyro offered, "We can walk for now. We're not too far away."

Malefor's brow creased. His mouth sagged open. "Fine. Fine."


	5. Chapter 5

Hunter's ears pricked up. He turned towards the sound of conflict: a brief clash of metal and a scream cut short. He ran to the village's central hut and hollered for his kin, the bow around his neck clenched tightly in his hand.

Prowlus, the chief of the village, emerged from the door. He was followed out by five other cheetahmen, their expressions somber, wiry builds tense, their sharp eyes on Hunter.

Prowlus' ocher features hardened as he approached Hunter with an impatient air. "What's the problem?"

"Something's wrong," Hunter replied. "Blades were drawn in the distance. I heard a scream, brief, like it was cut off."

Prowlus looked past Hunter, his brow furrowed. He gave a raise of his head. "Lead us."

Hunter led them to the south of the village and proceeded towards the wooded area of their elevated plot of land. A few stone-throws away from the wooded area's precipice was a square, clay building that stored their surplus of dried meats and produce.

Hunter's nostrils flared. "You smell that?"

Prowlus narrowed his eyes and nodded. "Offal. Probably an animal. What of it?"

Hunter peered around. His ears lowered. Something about the stench alarmed him: it was tinged with a faint, metallic odor.

The seven cheetahmen took wary steps towards the building. Prowlus gave Hunter an oblique stare. "Where are the signs of struggle? I see nothing."

Hunter raised his hand. His ears perked up as he neared the door to the storage building. Prowlus and the others picked up on it soon after. The chief put his ear to the door. He bared his fangs. "Transients."

Prowlus nearly opened the door when Hunter put his arm out in front of him. Hunter said quietly, "This high up? Who'd take the risk?"

Prowlus replied brusquely. "They could have used the pulleys. Not everyone can fend for themselves, or are willing."

Hunter's lips thinned. He couldn't shake the inexplicable apprehension. He noted a sound from some place: a faint, rhythmic creaking. He peered around but couldn't find the source. He lowered his hand and allowed Prowlus passage. Prowlus gave him a parting glare and palmed the wooden door open. He froze, his arm still outstretched.

Across from him upon a line of barrels was a reposed, white bipedal dragoness with a crimson chest and belly, her wild red mane of quills running down the back of her neck, with two bangs over her black and ruby eyes.

Raziela brought an apple to her mouth and threshed off a piece. She chewed with careful relish, her fangs in check as she savored the sweetness. She stretched her svelte and sinuous body. Her head leaned off the edge of a barrel, and with a sigh she said, "Told ya, Goon. You were being too noisy."

The cheetahmen followed her gaze. Against the left wall was another bipedal dragon, his arms crossed. Scarred russet scales clung tightly to his thin, striated musculature. He had four horns that curved from his head: two atop and two that extended from his jaws. Over his shoulders hung Double or Nothing: a large pair of serrated dragon horns affixed to a leather grip and hand guard.

Goon put a piece of dried venison to his teeth. He gave it a few experimental chews before he swallowed and tossed the meat at the cheetahmen's feet. He turned his gold-stained, yellow eyes to them. "You people ever open a cookbook?" He tsked. "A little paprika would have gone a long way."

Hunter mouthed, "Ferals." Ferals were rare in Avalar, their presence allegedly paired with the corruption of the black crystals, a creation of Malefor's. In some ways the bipedal dragons rivaled the power of their quadruped kin, albeit with stranger elements at their disposal.

Hunter didn't want to instigate a fight with them. He said to the ferals in a level voice, "We have no qualms with sharing." Prowlus nearly protested until Hunter silenced him with a raised hand. "Just take what you want and leave. Please."

Raziela simpered and cast an innocent look at them. "Oh hi! Didn't see you there. Too busy eating your food. Okay? Thanks. Bye."

Prowlus jostled Hunter out of the way. "Take what you want and leave. We're not going to ask again."

Goon grunted. "Well, at least they're being nicer than the other two."

"Yeah," Raziela said. Her long ears flattened as her tail hung off the barrels. "Those two didn't even offer to feed us. Just went straight for the blades." She pouted. "So rude."

Prowlus' eyelids tensed. "What other two?"

Goon shrugged. "I don't know their names. I just call them Creaky and Lynch." He read the confusion on the cheetahmen's faces. He pointed upwards. "Might wanna take another looksee outside." The cheetahmen rushed out of the building and searched the canopying trees.

The creaking came again. Hunter focused on the sound, and his eyes squinted as he tracked it. He stopped and looked up.

Two cheetahmen hung from the tree boughs. Their glassy eyes bulged down at them, the vines wrapped around their necks. Goon said from inside, "I think Creaky soiled himself on the way down. Creaky never could hold it in."

Prowlus and Hunter drew their straight swords, the other cheetahmen's blades flashing from their scabbards with a ringing chorus. They turned back towards the building, intent on blood.

Raziela's eyes widened up at the ceiling. Her lips parted briefly before a smile slithered across her muzzle.

She sang, "_I know what that sound means._" Her right hand dipped down behind the barrels, and a silvery, two-bladed spear, blurred into her hand. She lunged at Prowlus. The spear sank into his chest with a crunch and squelch, raised him off his feet. The dangling cheetahman's sword clattered upon the ground, his knuckles white as his hands wrung the spear's handle. Raziela raised the weapon with Prowlus still attached. The cheetahman screamed, his cry cut short as he hacked up blood, the red spittle down his chin and chest.

Hunter and his kin backpedaled. A sound pricked at their ears: a sharp clicking intermingled with a guttural growl. A force built within Raziela, and an influx of air surged towards her. Hunter bolted out of the house with the other cheetahmen in tow.

The blast came shortly after, and the air warped as a rumbling shockwave sent Hunter off his feet. His side struck a tree, where he rolled off and onto his belly. He struggled to breathe, the air thick with the scent of blood. He forced himself to his feet and shook off his daze. The other cheetahmen recovered and faced Raziela, who stood before them with a hand on her canted hip, her white scales smeared and splotched with gore.

Reddened meat clung to Shattersound. Raziela examined the aftermath with an empty stare. "Well would you look at that." Her eyes ran up her spear. "He _popped._"

Goon, still in the storage hut, uncrossed his arms and stared down at the blood on his body. "Ew." With a sigh he pushed himself off the wall and strolled outside, the gold spider marking down his back lustrous beneath the overcast, his arms draped over Double or Nothing.

The other cheetahmen reclaimed their swords, and their blades took on a lethal life in their wielders' hands. The cheetahmen's grief would wait.

Hunter detested his first instinct: to run. He didn't want to lose any more of his kinsmen, but they were too prideful to flee. They would need his archery. He slipped his bow off his head and into his left hand while his right snatched an arrow from his quiver. He nocked it, his aim on Raziela. He released the nock, and the arrow hissed towards its target.

Raziela's head bobbed away from the arrow, its trajectory now towards Goon. Goon bent his torso back. The arrow barely missed him and clinked off the storage building's wall. He raised his torso, his hand on his lower back. "So sorry, spine." He jerked his torso to the right, the crunch audible. He cringed. "So sorry."

A streak of metal swerved towards Goon's neck. Goon caught the sword between the horns of his weapon and canter-levered the blade between it, wrenched it away. With a rolling motion he drove the horns through the cheetahman's belly, tore a cry from him. Goon stuck out his lower lip. "What was that?" He twisted the horns. Another scream. "Come again?" He yanked the horns out and palmed the cheetahman to the ground. "You alright?"

Another cheetahman reclaimed his fallen comrade's sword, wielded two blades that rung and swirled as he advanced. Goon backpedaled, waited for a brief pause in his assailant's timing. He swept his weapon across his attacker's temple, stunned him. "Huh," Goon grunted. "You're the spinny type." He circled around the cheetahman and drove his weapon into his attacker's neck. The flesh snapped and wept red. A spasm went through the cheetahman before he stilled and slumped.

Another attack came from behind Goon. The feral grabbed the corpse and slung it into him, staggered him. Goon drove his weapon through the cheetahman's throat, his palm against the cheetahman's muzzle before he ripped out Double or Nothing, the horns drenched in cinnabar.

Goon turned his attention to Raziela, who staved off two attackers with Shattersound, the weapon a singing, streaking blur. Goon pointed at his work and hollered to her. "See how neat this is? No big splatters or giblets or..."

Goon's first victim, the gutted cheetahman, cried out. Goon sighed and slouched before he claimed the sword of his last victim. "You know...," he said with an air of annoyance as he ambled towards the dying cheetahman, "I was trying to set an example." He sidestepped from another arrow. The tip of it grazed his shoulder. He frowned again, his eyes aimed at Hunter. Hunter nocked another arrow, his sights on Raziela as she squared off against the two cheetahmen.

"Uh oh," Goon remarked, his eyes on the fray, the sword's pommel held by his fingertips. He dropped it through the gutted cheetahman's throat and ambled towards the fight. He wondered if Raziela would notice the arrow aimed at her. "Gee, I sure hope that arrow doesn't..." The arrow hissed forth and grazed her flank. Raziela yowled as a thin red cut formed on her hindquarter. Goon smirked and muttered, "Even I could have hit _that._"

Raziela flashed a glare at Goon. She snarled, "Why didn't you warn me?"

"I did," Goon shouted back.

"You did?"

"No."

Raziela didn't have time to retaliate against Goon. One of the cheetahman breached the distance with an upward slash to her knee. Raziela pumped her leg back and swung it across the cheetahman's jaw. His teeth left his mouth in a blur of blood before he buckled. Like a spear to a fish Raziela lanced the cheetahman through the chest and swung the stuck victim into his kinsman. She stepped forward and spun.

The spear hummed through the air, its song silenced within her attacker's neck. The cheetahman dropped to his knees. His head tumbled off, and his stumped neck gurgled crimson before he collapsed.

Terror crept into Hunter's calm. Years of training and friendship gone in moments, his kinsmen effortlessly slaughtered. A sense of obligation kept him there, at odds with his rationale. He nocked another arrow and fired at Goon.

Goon batted the arrow aside. He shouted to Hunter, "Nice shot. You're doing such a _great_ job." He squared himself in front of Hunter's sight.

Raziela joined Goon, the female feral disappointed. "Goon, we killed them all." She gave Hunter a moue. "He's the only one left. Can I have him?"

"No," Goon reprimanded. "You'll have to earn it." Another arrow hissed towards his face. He bobbed his head from it. "I think he's upset."

"Huh," Raziela said, her spear across the back of her neck. Her arms dangled off its handle. "Wonder why."

The ferals leered at Hunter, their expressions a mix of malice and amusement. Goon said to Raziela, "We're at three and three." He lifted his chin up at the cheetahman. "He's the tie-breaker."

Raziela lowered her eyes at Hunter. "Is that right?" The ferals sauntered towards him. Raziela raised Shattersound above her head, her voice guttural as she channeled her power, her cheek dimpled as she smirked. "_You should be running._"

Hunter sprinted from them, the forest a rush of brown and green in his periphery. A seismic wave came after him, ripped through the trees and soil with a bellowing roar. His footing faltered. He caught himself on his arms and regained his speed. He glanced back to see Raziela and Goon advance, their weapons held out to their sides.

Hunter left the forest and entered the grass clearing, the precipice before him. He veered left. Goon and Raziela matched his turn, and their clawed feet kicked up dirt as they pursued. Raziela brandished her spear. The clicking growl of her power permeated Hunter. A foreign thought pierced his desperation, a suggestion, a whisper. He wondered if he could still talk to them, reason with them.

His adrenaline flooded the thought. Hunter questioned the intrusive idea, wondered if female feral had tried to manipulate him with her strange sound. The ground left him as another seismic wave sent him off his feet and over the precipice. His hands scrabbled the air.

He caught the pulley's rope and slid down. The fibers seared his hand, and he gritted his teeth and tightened his grip as the pulley lowered him. He looked up to see Raziela and Goon stare down at him. They leaped off.

Hunter released the rope and landed. The impact jarred him. He fought the pain as he ran, and his vision narrowed at the stone wall's crags before him.

Raziela shouted from behind him, "We didn't mean to scare you!" Hunter ignored her. She persisted. "We just wanna talk! Seriously!"

Hunter leaped. His legs and arms caught the wall's outcrop. His lean, light musculature served him well. He bounded from crag to crag, ascended rapidly. He reached the top and allowed himself a glance behind.

Goon and Raziela looked down at him from behind. Hunter stepped away only to be wrenched to the ground by Raziela. He yawped as she straddled his chest. She tilted her head down at him as her spear rolled between her thumb and fingers. "Told ya we wanted to talk."

Goon corrected her. "_You_ wanted to talk. I want a new pouch." He gave Hunter a once-over. "He's the right design."

Raziela pouted up at him. "Goon, you know I love it when they brag about us."

Goon grunted in disapproval. "Leaving survivors is asking for trouble. You've backlogged an entire army after our tails by now."

Raziela glowered up at him. "That's part of the _fun,_ not to mention the _fear._ Fear-fun-fun-fear. Besides, no one's going to resist if they know what we can do."

"Or they'll double-up on defense and be stubborn about dying." He sighed. "I hate stubborn dying."

Raziela waved him off and turned her attention to Hunter. "So hi. Nice to meet you. Not really." She clenched his jaw in her hand, her teeth bared in a grin. "It always amazes me how _easy_ it is..." She squeezed tighter. Hunter grunted in pain while Raziela's eyes narrowed in content. "To just rip the mandible right off. That one time assembly upon birth...pop. All gone. Just like that." She eased her grip and waggled his head. "But I'm not going to do that to you." She tussled his ears. "_You're so fuzzy._"

She canted her head to the other side. "I'm gonna need you to do something for me, in case you didn't hear us over your own panicking. That happens. You're forgiven." She leaned closer and presented her cheek to him. She whispered, "You've got to tell everyone just how very, very, very _mean_ we are. Don't ask why. Trust me, it works." She cast a spiteful look at Goon. "We welcome all kinds of criticism, and deal with it accordingly. So..."

She rose up and kicked Hunter's side. "Get up. Get talking. We're _really_ looking forward to your feedback."

Hunter hissed in pain as he rose, his hand at his side. The weight of his loss was at the far scales of his mind, waited to tip when he was alone. Its heaviness weighed his words. "You sure you want to do that?" He could almost imagine what Spyro and Cynder would do to these two.

The question intrigued Raziela. "You sure you want to live? Because that doesn't sound like a very 'I wanna live' question."

Hunter smirked despite his sagging eyelids. "It doesn't always take an army." He looked to Goon. "Sometimes it just takes two." He turned his back to them and cradled his side as he limped.

Goon watched him go, the feral's expression pensive. "This is what I was talking about."

Raziela stabbed the earth with Shattersound, her hands propped on its crossguard. "'Bout what?"

"Inviting the stubborn ones." Goon drummed his fingers against his hip. "Two..." He pondered that. "Two..." He grinned wryly. "I think I might like this."

Raziela asked, "Like what?"

Goon chuckled. "Two worth a damn fighting." He hung Double or Nothing across the back of his neck, his gloved hands against its horns. "Your idiocy might make things more interesting."

Raziela's long ears lowered. "I'm interesting already!"

"When you're picking berries. I prefer your better half." He ignored her string of curses as he sauntered away from Hunter's path, all the while the cheetahman's words played in his head.

He grinned wryly. He would take up the mangy cat's offer, if need be.


	6. Chapter 6

The cave's interior carried the cries of the lionman, his yellowed teeth clenched. The knotted sinew of his arms bulged as he clawed at the red dragon's arm against his chest. The reptile's fire-coiled paw dug deeper into the flesh.

The dragon, Flame, restrained the lionman's struggling as its dank robes and fur smoked. The dragon spoke in a tempered voice. "There are more of you. Do yourself the favor of ending this quickly. Just tell me."

The lionman's amber eyes flashed beneath his hood. An airless cackle came from him. "Now or later makes no difference." He roared as Flame twisted his prehensile paw deeper, the dragon's red irises flecked with fire.

Flame canted his head at the lionman, the screaming dead to him. "I've heard that before." He pushed deeper, the lionman's howl strained as blood darkened his robe. Flame remained stoic. "We could continue this later, if you prefer."

The lionman trembled, his watering eyes contracted. He snarled through gritted fangs, "You won't. Can't. Black Crystal..." He looked down at his chest. His cackle returned. "Drain you...eat you..."

"Not fast enough to save you."

The lionman's cackling dwindled, replaced by scorn. "He's coming back."

Flame eased his fire, his eyes narrowed in intrigue. "Malefor? Your god?"

A croaking sigh came from the lionman. His head rolled to the side. "More than what we could have hoped for."

Flame's brow furrowed. "More? How?"

The lionman leered at the dragon. His smirk broadened. "Your savior brought him back."

The lionman's revelation didn't make any sense to Flame."Spyro? He's the one that killed your god. Why him? How would you know?"

The lionman's hand slowly drifted to his chest. He tapped it with his forefinger. His hand drifted to his temple. His forefinger rested there. "We're connected through his boon. We felt our god rise, felt the converse one near him." He laughed in silence. "Like oil and water those two."

Flame's lips parted, his words rasped. "Unfortunate for you."

The lion's smugness faded. "How?"

"Oil burns." Flame's arm blazed and bore into the lionman's chest. The dragon wrenched the lion's heart out, who's maw gaped as he slid down the cave wall. His head rested on his cauterized chest. Flame's sight lingered on the dead lionman. He shifted his attention to the pumping heart in his hand: burnt, smooth muscle embedded with black fragmented crystals that sipped at his magic's source, like energy sapped by a smoldering sun.

Flame tossed the heart onto the corpse, and his vision wandered down to the cave's damp ground. He had hoped to round them up and eliminate them, but to traverse the cave's winding underground would prove too time-consuming. Such an endeavor would have to be mapped gradually, yet he risked exposure to the lion and cheetahmen, which would drive them further down.

Flame preferred to pick them off whenever they left the safety of their cave. The now heartless lionman had been an aberration, a possible chance to find the others. He couldn't tarry any longer, however. His mate was hungry.

He padded out of the cave, and his eyelids tensed against the sun. He turned to the east, at the expansive portions of land where the cloven creatures still grazed. He could wash the blood off at one of the tributaries that stemmed from the higher levels, where Avalar's snow caps were still intact. Gravity and precipitation found their way throughout Avalar, as if to cleanse its wounds. With a slight crouch he vaulted into the air. His wings spread with a crack.

{{}}

Ember lied on her back. Her ocher horns propped her head up while her prehensile paws twined a thin, sturdy vine. She allowed herself a slight smile, and her cobalt eyes glinted beneath the crack of light through the overcast.

She didn't want to be in their cave today. The rippling grasslands were streaked with slivers of sunlight that escaped from the clouds, the wind at a whisper. Her fuchsia-scaled legs played lightly through the air as she worked, waited for Flame to return. She winced at a sharp pain in her chest, and her eyes shut as she put her paw against her gray scarf. Her paw traveled up to her neck, where she drew out more slack.

She opened her eyes. A winged silhouette descended towards her. Her smile returned as Flame landed next to her, a sheep carcass in his jaws. He set it down and sat next to her. She was still on her back and when she held out the vine necklace to him.

Flame beamed at the gift. "You made that for me?"

Ember nodded. She curled her paws to her chest, enamored as he tied the twined vine around his neck. She simpered a little. "We match."

Flame examined the necklace, the strong fibers tightly woven around each other. He tilted his head at the carcass a few paces away from them. "Mine's not as pretty, I'm afraid."

Ember shrugged. She tapped the empty space of grass next to her. Flame joined her, and his shoulder brushed against hers. They stared up at the broken stratus clouds as the pale light bled through the plumes of gray.

Ember pressed her muzzle against his shoulder. "Took you awhile."

Flame ran his paw along her forearm. "The sheep are isolated up there. Only so much they can graze before they have to risk new land. Let's face it: they're not goats. I'm surprised there wasn't a nice, convenient sheep pile at the bottom."

Ember rolled onto her side. Her arm stretched across his belly as she looked down at him. "Prey was scarce then?"

Flame nodded. His eyes strayed from hers. "Yes, to sum it up." Ember's gaze rested on him for a moment longer before she lied her belly against his. Flame idly stroked the necklace. "Thank you for this."

Ember rested her cheek on the hollow of his neck. "I smell blood, Flame."

Flame stilled. "I just went hunting. Of course you do."

"It's not sheep's blood."

Flame swallowed, and his eyes closed. Her voice wasn't accusatory, wasn't cold or antagonizing. What hurt him was the pleading undertow, a plea he didn't listen to. "I..." He sighed deeply. "I found one of them out in the open. Do you know how rare that is?"

Ember said nothing. Flame continued. "I found out something from him, something important." He grasped his necklace. "I'm not sure if I believe him, but...He said Malefor returned." Ember continued to listen. Her silence strung the words from Flame. "He said Spyro did it. Spyro! Can you believe that?"

"How did you get him to tell you?"

Flame's throat tightened. He turned his head away. It took him a moment to overcome the guilt. "I know you don't want me doing this."

"Why do you?"

Flame exhaled through clenched teeth. "They can't be allowed to do what they do. I can't just sit by. I know you hate it, I know you do, but I..."

Ember laid her arm across his chest. "I know. That's one of the things I love about you." Her sight met his, and their paws met. She gave it a light squeeze. "It's something I don't want to see darken."

Flame shook his head at that. "Darken?"

Ember adjusted, laid her chin on him. "You acted when I needed you. You act when anyone needs you. That's rare, Flame...Hey..." She cradled his chin and brought his visage to hers. "What you're doing now: it's for something else. I know what you think you're doing is right. You want to prevent it from happening again. But when will it end? How many is it going to take?"

Flame's countenance darkened. "Till they're dead."

Ember rose on one arm and loomed over him, her paw on his chest. "It never ends. Someone always takes their place."

Flame's darkened countenance became stricken. His paw traveled beneath her scarf. The heat of her embedded gem pulsed against his touch. "You're right. They do."

Ember closed her eyes. She held his touch against her chest. "It's easy to lose yourself to a cause, invest too much. I don't want to lose you."

Flame gave her a wan smile. "You ground me, Ember. You know that."

Ember returned the smile and let go of Flame's paw. His finger tips brushed her cheek. Ember set her sight to the side. "I just don't want to be around the violence anymore. It's a stupid wish, I know. Like you said, you're not one to stand by." Her lips thinned as she frowned. "I don't want to tether you when you feel you're needed, and right now Avalar needs more like you. So, I've been thinking."

Flame canted his head up at her. "About what?"

Ember shrugged a shoulder. "About a better way to ground you."

"What do you mean?"

It took her a moment to say it. "I want to go with you."

Flame's breathing stilled. "I nearly lost you once already."

"When I didn't have someone like you with me." She let those words settle. "We're together in this, not just mates but partners too. I can't keep letting you go alone."

A faint red light pulsed beneath Ember's scarf. The illumination captivated Flame, and a long breath escaped from him. "And your power? Has that recovered?"

"In some ways more so. It's greater than it ever was. Harder to keep in check though."

Flame took that with a nod. A thought humored him as he peered around. "How are the grasslands still intact then?"

Ember returned the question with a grin. "Razing enemy strongholds and hellfire are more your thing. I have a bit more finesse."

"Finesse do you?"

"Yes. Finesse."

"What kind of finesse..." An intense heat manifested from behind Flame. He turned. Slithering shimmers undulated through the air, swam listlessly. He cocked an eyebrow. "That's new."

"Mm hm," Ember said with a thin grin. The heat serpents wound and spiraled about. "Not sure where they came from."

"Like the idea of them?"

Ember nodded. "The power's become more protean as of late. I can concentrate a lot into a little."

Flame considered the possibilities. "Do you have to keep them in sight?"

"Mm...Yes and no. That's one of the things I'm working on: distance. As for control, it's a little bit harder to explain."

"How so?"

Ember's lips pursed as she thought. "You have an idea going, of what you want it to do. You put it in action. That idea is still there, but it takes on a life of its own. It stems from that thought, like a seed in a way. But that life isn't sentient. I have to guide my power. It can't see or feel or hear, none of that."

Flame rolled to his fours and sat as his vision followed the serpents' figure-eight. "I was thinking you could burn the Aphos out of their holes, let me pick them off."

Ember winced at that. Flame wasn't usually open about his methods or mentality when it came to the Aphos, the lion and cheetahmen responsible for her condition. She understood his hate for them, however, juxtaposed as it was to his love for her. "Maybe we could think of another way to use my power, something remote."

Flame gave her an oblique look. "Remote?"

"I'm thinking..." She dug her claws through the grass. "In conjunction with something."

"Like what?"

Her paw stilled. Her claws tapped upon the exposed soil. "Do you remember the guns the moles used?"

"What about them?"

"They used a powder to fire the ammunition."

Flame shook his head. "That pales in comparison with what we can do. Why would we need them?"

"Because they may know variants of that, something to smoke them out more effectively."

Flame mouthed, "Ah." He smirked. "Think we need to pay Haedrig a visit?"

Ember assented. "It's been awhile since we've seen him. Wonder if he still keeps himself busy."

Flame recalled his last visit with the mole. "I'm pretty sure he does. Last time we visited he was complaining about too much company...With us being the exception, of course."

"Oh of course."

They chuckled at that. Flame's expression turned somber. "Think he'll mind helping against the Aphos?"

"I don't see why he wouldn't." Ember pointed out, "He helped with the fight against Malefor. The Aphos are the ones fighting a lost battle."

"So we thought," Flame reminded her.

The thought disturbed Ember. "How would they know about Malefor?"

"The Black Crystals. They took them into themselves to be connected with Malefor. Step above the apes in that regard."

"Into them?" Ember said with a grimace. "How would you know..." She grew solemn at that.

Flame averted his eyes. "Figured that out awhile ago. I'd rather not delve into the details. It revealed a lot though."

Ember redirected Flame's gaze back to her. "Is that what they were trying to do to me?"

Flame gave a weak nod. His sight traveled down to her scarf. "Sometimes I wish you wouldn't wear that."

Ember's paw returned to her scarf, her eyes downcast. "I can't attract attention. You know that."

Flame waved his arm across the swaying grasslands. "No one's around to see." Ember smiled up at him, her paw traveling to the back of her neck, where she undid the knot.

The scarf fell from her. Embedded in her chest was a pulsing, incandescent gem. Flame pulled her close, his paw upon it. The pulsing quickened. Ember's paw met atop his, her voice light, airy. "What were they trying to do?"

"Blacken you. Loss of life or self. It was the same sacrifice to them."

Ember lightly squeezed his paw. "That won't happen with you around."

Flame's lips met her forehead. "We'll go see Haedrig tomorrow, see if he knows anything about what we've learned."

Ember leaned her head into the nook of his neck. Flame waited for her to respond. "Ember?"

"I heard you." The dragoness grinned up at him. "I don't have to care until tomorrow."

Flame returned the grin. "And the smile?"

"I want to practice."

"Is that so?"

"My power."

Flame's smile vanished. "Oh."

"'Oh' what?"

"Nothing."


	7. Chapter 7

Malefor trudged after them, his wingless condition a deepening dolor. Spyro and Cynder kept themselves just out of earshot.

Cynder said, "We need to follow Ignitus' suggestion."

Spyro cast a wary glance back at Malefor. "Which one?"

"Binding him."

He considered that. "Already? He hasn't done anything. He's already flightless."

"He doesn't need wings to be a threat."

Again, Cynder's proposal made sense, albeit it did nothing to ease his rising concern. "It's a contingent, I'll give you that." A subdued sigh. "Is that all this is about?"

Cynder winced, her expression askance. "What do you mean?"

"I mean you have a vindictive streak going through you."

Cynder's eyes narrowed. Her askance became incredulity. She gave him an airless laugh. "Vindictive, Spyro? I'd like to think of it as a fail-safe. Your mentor even suggested it."

Spyro leveled his voice to cool hers. "I'm not questioning the efficacy. I'm questioning the motive."

"What are you talking..."

"Cynder." Spyro's voice became stern. "I've never seen you this angry before. This is a different anger, and I'm not saying it isn't warranted. Whatever went on with you two in the past, it's done. The whole world has a grudge against him, what _was_ him. We need to keep that in perspective."

Cynder's frown intensified, her eyes to the grass as they walked. Something sinister etched her voice. "He called me 'poppet'."

"Don't let it get to you."

The dragoness darted her head to Spyro. Her eyes flashed white. "_That's not the first time._"

It donned on him then. "But he was in convexity..."

"My mind was his. It might as well have been real." Spyro's throat tightened. Cynder went on. "Ever wondered why he matured me? For power?" She wanly chuckled and shook her head. "He wanted someone, some_thing_ waiting for him when he got out."

Disgust and jealousy darkened Spyro's countenance. He didn't want to think about the time before their intimacy. Unsullied thoughts filtered through. "You're in a position of power now. We both are now."

Cynder eyed him. "You keep saying 'now'."

"Because 'now' is our main concern. We've yet to start dealing with The Black Star. We don't need to carry anymore burdens."

Cynder peered back at Malefor, the dark dragon's head hung low. "Suppose you're right. " Her sight wandered up at the darkening stratus clouds above her, the thinner bands seeping with molten light. "We still need to keep him in check. The collar's the best way to do that."

Spyro relented with a nod. "Alright. You want me to do it?"

Cynder shook her head, her eyes still upward. "No, and if we both try we'll just get more of a fight. I can convince him."

Spyro didn't voice his misgivings, as much as he wanted to. "Just remember: nothing left. That includes the burdens."

Cynder averted her eyes. "Hopefully it's that simple."

Spyro left her to her thoughts. He gave her shoulder a light squeeze and checked on Malefor. The former destroyer raised his head, watched them with an observant air.

{{}}

Malefor was more than agitated by the time they reached Spyro's cave. "'Not far' my tail's better half. Would a little truth have killed you? I would have suggested it sooner."

Spyro ignored his belligerence. "I'm going to hunt us something before we leave again."

Malefor's muzzle furled in anger. "Leave? To the Dragon Temple you mean?"

Spyro gave him an impassive, "Yeah."

Malefor rested his sight on Cynder, his unease within his words. "With her?"

Cynder answered for Spyro, though she did not meet Malefor's stare. "With me." She ambled over to Spyro and whispered into his ear. Spyro smiled and gave her a quick nuzzle before he leaped, spread his wings, and flew off after his quarry.

Malefor looked off to the side. He hid his envy, the stalking sadness that waited for his weak moments. He would not buckle again in front of the dragons. He didn't react to Cynder's crunching footfalls, didn't acknowledge her proximity until her muzzle nearly met his.

Malefor startled and stepped back. "What is this?"

Cynder's tail languidly swayed, her eyelids heavy with something that Malefor didn't initially recognize. Her heavy, honeyed voice betrayed her fidelity. "I can answer your questions."

Malefor checked the skies. He could barely see Spyro from where he stood. He returned his vision to Cynder, her lithe midnight form sleek as she circled him. He asked, "You still serve me?"

"Never stopped."

"Liar."

"You're here, aren't you?"

His words snagged upon hers. "You...you couldn't have planned this."

"Who said I planned it?" A smile slithered up her muzzle. "You're the mind, I the vessel, but it's nice to see the mind in the flesh."

Malefor's heart hastened, his breathing quicker. "This wasn't how I was supposed to return. I'm not at full strength."

The dragoness breached the gap between them. Her eyes roamed downward. With a light breath she said, "That will come with time." She looked off to the side, towards the cave. With a beckoning glance she made her way towards it.

Malefor gave the skies a final check before he followed her inside. Part of him reined his desire, told him something was amiss. Yet he had been starved of the physical vices for too long. His thinking drowned beneath a base undertow, something primal. Cynder was his. He wanted her back.

The outside light waned as they ventured further into the cave. Their footfalls echoed throughout, a rhythmic pattering with the clicking of claws. Cynder became as a stretched shadow at the fringe of the cave's illumination. Malefor grinned to himself. "No light where we're going, is there?"

The scrape of metal. Something cold and hard whipped and snapped around Malefor's neck. The segmented collar conformed to him and clicked into place. His eyes wandered downward. "Not what I had in mind..."

A blow rocked him off his fours and onto his back. Cynder followed up, her face obscured in black. Caliginous smoke curled up from her clenched fangs. Her paw tightened around his collar, her words grating. "Do you truly understand darkness?" The black wisps formed into forked tongues. "Light defines what the night hides." She yanked him close. "What are you hiding from me?"

The forked tongues flicked and sank into the collar, diffused into a net of tendrils. Malefor's back arched. He screamed, the talons of his shivering paws embedded into the stone floor. Cynder remained deaf to his pain. She shoved his face to the ground. "We'll need to look deeper."

Malefor howled and hacked. Blood and spittle leaked off his chin. His strained voice rose through the torment, the resurfaced past pains. "Just...like me."

Cynder slowly shook her head. "No. I'm worse." She inhaled, the air displaced. The shriek of high winds emanated from the dragoness, and from her maw came a wave of brilliant vermillion that encompassed Malefor. The dark dragon cowered from her. His back hit the wall, and he averted his eyes as the dragoness approached. Her low voice cut through him. "I can bring it all to the surface."

Her paw snatched his throat. "Thanks to you, _master._"

Malefor's head thrashed, his vision of Cynder a warped collage, her sanguine eyes alight within her shadowed countenance. Her shades shimmered throughout the cave. They surrounded him, smothered him against the wall, his former minion no different than the Elders that revived him through anguish. He sobbed, the phantasms' eyes albicant. "Birth through death."

Cynder sneered. "What?"

"_Consumed. Still. Alive_." His muscles seized and wrenched him into a fetal position. Another wave struck him, uncurled his form as he screamed in silence. His mental anguish became physical, the memories a malaise, his mind a canvas as knifing red pain streaked across it. His words clanged together. "_New born old bred through pasts never silent always screaming muttering mocking squealing they crawl hungry always hungry always watching with his eyes."_

His body rocked as he wept. "_Hope hurts, hope hurts, hope hurts..._"

Cynder loomed over him. The red of fear and the ebon of darkness receded into her. "What are you talking about?"

Malefor scuttled away from her towards the scant light of the cave. The blood from his mouth coursed down his chin and neck, where it pooled and merged with the residual essence of Cynder's element. "_Who...do you...think?_"

A beat of thought. "The Black Star?" The name afflicted Malefor. He returned her stare with his own glower, his breathing deep, teeth bared. Cynder asked him, "What does he want from us?"

Three syllables stricken with abhorrence. "Everything."

Spyro's voice reverberated throughout the cave. "Cynder!" He ran towards her. His vision shifted to Malefor. He stopped, disconcerted by the scene. "What did you do to him?"

Cynder answered brusquely. "Bound him."

"Is that why he's bleeding?"

Cynder confronted Spyro. "You think he would have just let me?"

Spyro assayed Malefor. The dark dragon gave no acknowledgment of Spyro's presence. Malefor barely breathed, his eyelids heavy and his cheeks smeared with blood, the sanguine as black before the sparse light. Spyro approached Malefor, detected the elements around him. He said to Cynder, "Fear and Darkness? Was that necessary?"

"They work hand in hand."

Spyro shook his head. "You didn't need to go this far."

"Who are you to say?"

"Because he's one push back to insanity." He let the words settle. "We _need_ him, Cynder. I trusted you to put your grudge aside."

"He'll be fine." Cynder turned away from him. Spyro walked towards her and stretched his paw to her shoulder. She shook it off. "Not now, please."

"Why?"

Her frown deepened, her tone defensive. "I don't have that kind of grace, alright? All things considered it doesn't exactly come natural."

Spyro softened his voice. "I don't pretend to know what you went through. I'm not holding this against you. But I told you before: I need _you_, not your Other. How can we expect Malefor to keep his head when we're not holding the same standard?"

Cynder's deference didn't come easily. "Suppose not."

Something within Spyro sunk. Cynder had never been so brusque with him, so distant. He grimaced and left the cave, his footfalls heavy with despondence, his mind muddled.

He barely registered Hunter, who stood outside the entrance. Spyro cleared the mental fog. "Hunter? Why are you here? What happened?"

Hunter's taut hand clenched his tattered leather armor, his body stooped with ache. The matted fur beneath his reddened eyes denoted his grief. He tried to speak, his voice coarse. "Ferals."

Spyro jogged his memory. "Bipeds? What about them?"

"Prowlus. Five of my kin. Slaughtered. They let me live."

The dragon's jaw hardened. "For what purpose?"

"To tell others about them."

A cold black anger stirred within Spyro. "What are their names?"

"Raziela and Goon. The female is white with a mane of red quills, the male red with a gold spider upon his back."

Spyro's pupils dilated. His talons dug into the grass. He turned to the cave. "Cynder! Hunter's here! We need you!"

The dragoness padded out of the cave a few moments later. She sided herself next to Spyro, her visage pensive, perturbed. She turned to Hunter. The Cheetahman's haggard appearance brought out her sympathy, her tone condolent. "Hunter? What's wrong?"

Spyro answered for Hunter. "Prowlus and five other of his clan are dead. Ferals did it. Raziela and Goon are their names."

Cynder mouthed the names to herself. Both her and Spyro burned with the same gelid fire. She asked, "Where were they last seen?"

Hunter wet his lips and swallowed. "Near the lower level of my village. They watched me go before heading west." His grievance choked his next words. "They proved their point, I suppose."

Spyro's sight wandered, and his forearms striated: a habit formed by anger. "What point was that?"

Hunter gave a weak shake of his head. "They wanted our food. I tried to reason with them. Prowlus..." His lips pulled back, his bloodied fangs exposed. "_Idiots!_" The sudden bout of fury receded to bereavement. "If they had just swallowed their damn pride." He extended his arms to the sides, a gesture of inner turmoil. "They had to draw their blades. Why? Why couldn't they have let it go?"

"It'll be alright, Hunter," Spyro said. His next words came laced with venom. "We'll deal with them."

Cynder asked Hunter, "Do you have any idea where they could have gone?"

Hunter pinched his brow and forced his tears back. "No. I couldn't tell you."

A thought came to Spyro. "You weren't followed, were you?"

Hunter shook his head. "No. I checked my back repeatedly. They couldn't have..."

A sweet, high voice lilted from behind them. "_Oh yes you were!_"

Spyro, Cynder, and Hunter spun around. Raziela and Goon stood atop the cave. Goon's Double or Nothing was draped over his neck and down his chest, while Raziela's arms hung over her shouldered Shattersound. The two jumped off and nimbly landed. They sauntered towards them, their steps lax. Raziela twiddled her fingers at them and grinned. "Hi there! Looking for us?"


	8. Chapter 8

"They left me! Again!" Sparx circled around Haedrig's room, his form a streak of gold as he angrily paced. "All the time! I've been exposed to explosives, fire-indigestion, cold-burps, lightning, wind, acid halitosis, and let me tell you her stuff eats through _anything._"

Haedrig tried to calm the dragonfly. "Sparx..."

"Anything! And I don't even wanna know how Spyro manages to kiss her without getting his tongue melted off or anything else for that matter..."

"Sparx!" Haedrig held his hands out, a suppressive gesture. "It was for your safety. They didn't want you around Malefor."

Sparx groaned and rolled his eyes. He flailed his arms and mocked in a high-pitched voice, "It's too dangerous, Sparx! This my destiny, Sparx! Blah, blah, blah! Stay here Sparx while I FULFILL MY DESTINY IN PRIVATE."

Warily, Haedrig tried to move around the subject. "There are many important things you can help me with..."

"WHAT'S HE FULFILLING WHEN I'M NOT AROUND, HUH? HE AIN'T FULFILLING BY HIMSELF, I'LL TELL YA THAT MUCH."

Haedrig made an observation. "You seem a little jealous."

The comment flustered Sparx. "Uh...No I'm not." He turned away from Haedrig and crossed his arms.

Haedrig pointed out, "He never abandoned you as his friend. His attention was divided, that's all."

Sparx sputtered his lips. "Yeah, and we can guess who the leftover was on that equation."

Haedrig sighed. "You have to think this through. You and Spyro may have been through a lot, but Malefor and this Black Star are something else entirely. He wouldn't have kept you here if he didn't care you about you. He even warned me to be careful with you."

Sparx frowned and gave him a relenting nod. "Well...Guess I can take a few days off my grudge."

Haedrig accepted the compromise with a light chuckle. His thoughts returned to Malefor's resurrection. "Are you feeling alright otherwise?"

Sparx raised an eyebrow. "Why do you ask?"

"Because you passed out when Malefor came back."

Sparx's glow dimmed. "Yeah. About that..."

"No explanation necessary," Haedrig assured. "Not something either of us are going to forget."

Sparx grimaced as he remembered. "Never seen anything like that before. And I wasn't lying when I said I had seen a lot." He asked, "What's he like?"

"Malefor?" Haedrig grunted. "Belligerent. Powerless from what it seems. But yet..." His own thoughts surprised him. "Not the evil I thought he would be. You can't always tell though. Madness wears many guises, but him..." He rubbed his chin. "I can't place it, but not all the pieces fit with him. They're there, but they aren't together."

Sparx held his hand out. "What's so dangerous about him then?"

Haedrig lent Sparx a cautionary look. "We don't know how he'll fit together."

A few knocks came from Haedrig's door. The mole put his hand to his revolver's grip. "Who is it?"

A low tenor answered. "Haedrig, it's Flame and Ember."

Sparx mouthed, "Who?" Haedrig ignored Sparx's question. The mole beamed and opened his door.

Flame stood before the doorway, his head lowered. "May we come in?"

Haedrig barked a laugh. "My home's going to be a dragon hostel at this rate!"

Flame tilted his head. "What?"

Haedrig waved off his comment. "Yes! Come in, come in." He moved to allow the two dragons entry.

Sparx's head oscillated between the newcomers. "I'm in the middle of a freaking reptile zoo." He asked Haedrig, "You're not going to start giving them booze, are you?"

Haedrig gave Sparx a quick introduction before the dragonfly could make anymore remarks. "Flame, Ember, this is Sparx. He's a friend of Spyro and Cynder."

Flame's eyes shifted between Sparx and Haedrig. He asked Sparx, "You know him?"

"Know him?" Sparx harrumphed. "He's like a brother. From another mother. And species. But yeah, I know him."

Flame turned to Ember. The two shared a silent a exchange. Flame said to Haedrig, "We had come here to talk about the Aphos, but this may prove more insightful."

"The Aphos?" Haedrig said. "They're still around?"

"Yes. Not many. None would be preferable."

Haedrig offered no argument to that. He examined Ember, the cloth over her chest. He asked gingerly, "How are you fairing, dear?"

Ember returned his compassion, her smile broad. "I've been well, thanks to you."

Sparx shouted, "Stop!" He clapped his hands. "Backstory, let's hear it."

Flame eyed the dragonfly. He muttered to Haedrig, "Spyro's not like him, is he?"

"Heard that!"

Haedrig staunched the imminent argument. "Alright everyone, settle down." He gestured to Flame and Ember, his words aimed at Sparx. "I helped them fight the Aphos, a clan of cheetahmen and lionmen."

Sparx asked, "What's their deal?"

A quick breath of thought. "At their essence, fatalism. They viewed Malefor's destruction as a release. For them it was easier to relent than fight. They felt the need to spread their belief."

"Spread their belief?"

Haedrig looked to Flame to answer. Flame said to Sparx, "They assisted Malefor, took the black crystals into themselves, became a recipient of his insanity. Some of them gained power: limited manipulations of elements, increased strength, speed. The most powerful were the thralls, the ones completely taken by the crystals."

"Wait," Sparx said. "Gained power? I thought the crystals drained a dragon's magic."

Flame gave Haedrig an oblique glance. "Haedrig can explain that one."

The mole knowingly grinned. "So we thought. The black crystals don't just siphon the energy into some bottomless pit. It's concentrated deep within the crystals, under..." He rolled his hand. "Under pressure if you will, though in a different sense. You were around when Spyro and Cynder destroyed these crystals, right?"

"Yeah," Sparx said. "I'm still not sure how my ears are intact."

Haedrig waved a finger. "That was the condensed energy, or magic if you will, escaping. Somehow the Aphos are able to draw upon that." He gave himself a mental stop. "But I digress. That's a subject of great interest for me." He addressed Flame. "As for your request, you just missed Spyro and Cynder and..." Realization seized his words. He didn't want to bring up Malefor in front of Flame.

The red dragon coaxed him. "Who else?"

Haedrig wet his lips and dry-washed his gloved hands. "I'm...not sure how to tell you this. A lot has happened in a short time."

Ember eased the information from Haedrig. "You can tell us, Haedrig. You know you're dear to us."

Haedrig didn't want to meet their eyes. "It's...Malefor."

Flame's eyes widened. "It's true then..."

The revelation shocked Haedrig. "You know?"

"Yes. I extracted that much from the Aphos." He squinted in thought. "I didn't believe it when I heard it." Another moment of cogitation. He asked Haedrig, "You were there when he was brought back?"

Haedrig nodded. "There's more to it than that. To sum it up: Malefor's not the main threat here."

"What?"

Haedrig extended his splayed hands. "Bear with me. In short, the reason Malefor wanted to burn Avalar was so this...deity, The Black Star, wouldn't get the chance."

Flame processed this, his expression equivocal. "I'm presuming this Black Star promised a worse fate."

"Yes."

"So why bring Malefor back?"

"Because Malefor knows about The Black Star. He was...receptive to him? Like the Aphos and the Black Crystals."

Flame remained impassive. "So to extract information from him?"

"Yes."

"And they'll kill him once they're finished?"

Haedrig carefully chose his words. "I can't speak for them. From what I understand he's not the same. His memories and body are partitioned. As I was telling Sparx, he's an unsolved puzzle.

Flame bore his stare into Haedrig. "And do you really think those pieces have changed?"

"Who's to say? The mind's not static. Neither are its pieces. There may be a different picture by the time this is all over."

"Or a darker one." Flame walked over to Haedrig's wall, the green glow of the crystals an emerald glow upon his scales. He dulled the sharpness of his words. "You know how I feel about Malefor and the Aphos. I don't like this."

"I know that," Haedrig said. "Things have become complicated as of late, and I fear they'll only get worse."

Flame studied the pulsing light within the crystal. "I can make it simpler."

Haedrig looked up at Ember for support, the mole at a loss. Ember mouthed, "I'll talk to him." She sided herself next to Flame, shared his view of the crystal. "There's more to this now. We can't ignore that."

"I know," Flame said. "Doesn't mean we can't resolve it differently."

"True, but I think you're being a little impetuous."

He canted his head towards her. "How's that?"

"You're already talking about killing Malefor."

"And?"

"Well..." Ember slowly exhaled. "It's not just our struggle. It's just as much Spyro's and Cynder's, if not more so. Whatever happened, it would be in our best interest to get in contact with them before we make a brash decision."

Her words calmed Flame. The red dragon's voice warmed. "I know you're right. It's hard for me not to be angry. It's just sometimes..." He closed his eyes. "I see you, and I see I the altar and I..." He swallowed. "Sorry. Don't know why I'm so vindictive. I'm not the one who suffered."

Ember put her paw upon his back, her lips to his ear. "It's because you care. We've been over this. It's a different kind of anger at work." She gave him a light kiss. "Just keep the other in check, okay?"

Flame gave her a murmur of assent. He asked her, "So what's next?"

Ember chuckled. "You're asking me now?"

He returned her humor. "You seem to have it all figured..."

A wind hissed from outside, a low rumble in the distance. The dragons, Haedrig, and Sparx turned to the door. Haedrig walked over and opened it. He stood there, still, his hand clenched around the knob.

Sparx flew over to him. "What's wrong..." His wings faltered. "Guys...guys you need to see this." Flame and Ember joined them. Their eyes glazed at the outside scene.

The clouds churned with ocher and gray, a molten mist. The wind sung through every hollow it could find, the rumble ubiquitous, neither tectonic nor a tempest.

A hole formed in the clouds, a great inhalation, a brief column of sunlight. The rumble became stentorian, a roar that shook Avalar to its core. Great bellows of bruised air issued from the hole, pulsed with crimson coruscation, crawled and rolled across the land in viscous tumbles.

Haedrig slammed the door shut. The gust struck his home, screamed as it passed. The crystals in the anteroom quivered. Below them shrilled the bell, the shriek one with the outside gales. The dragons, Haedrig, and Sparx covered their heads, cringed against the wailing.

It stopped. A draft lingered: warbled lilts that whispered and died. Slowly, Haedrig approached the door and opened it. Misted light bled from the furled sky, and the cumulus faintly webbed with lightning, the ozonic air thick and cold.

The dragons and Sparx joined him. None offered words to the sight, yet all shared the same apprehension.

{{}}

A small, log home housed a Cheetahmen family of three: a father, mother, and daughter, independent of the neighboring villages. They sustained themselves by their own means, and their plot of grassy land had proved more than adequate for game and farming.

The father, Luke, first sensed the coming, his fur raised. The mother and daughter quickly sensed the other, the foreign presence in Avalar. It came upon them as a malaise of the spirit, a foreboding that exhumed the raw fear buried beneath the comfort of routine.

"Maria," Luke said to his wife, "keep your blade close. Stay to the back."

Maria didn't understand his reasoning. She said incredulously, "Blade? Did you not feel that? You think a blade will help?"

"I'm not concerned about _it_, whatever it is. I'm concerned about the ones who will panic. We can't rely on our location alone, I've told you that."

Their daughter, Lily, held her mother closer to her. "Dad..."

"Yes dear?"

A moment passed. Lily hugged herself, her words tremulous. "This feels like a nightmare."

"It's not a nightmare, Lily. We can't fight back in nightmares. We can fight here if we have to. It may just be a strong storm for all we know."

"But it doesn't feel right!" A small sob came from her. She nestled her head in the crook of her mother's arm.

In a hushed voice, Maria said to her, "Your father's right. We won't let anything happen to you."

Lily said faintly, "I know you won't let it." She didn't voice her second thought.

A faint thrum pervaded the home. The windows and wooden furnishings vibrated. The thrumming intensified, pulsed with increasing speed. Luke backpedaled from his door, his blade held out in front of him. The pulsing lost spaces, the resonance as one. The house shook, jarred the family off their feet.

It stopped. The door opened. A figure shrouded in sullied rags entered, his cowled head held low. He closed the door behind him with a ritual calm. He stood at the doorway, unmoving.

Luke shot to his feet. His blade sung as it arced towards the figure's head. The cheetahman blinked, and his sight wandered down to his hand. His blade was gone.

The figure ambled past him towards Maria and Lily. Luke lunged at the figure, clenched his rags and pulled. The figure did not budge, his rags undamaged. He continued his walk even as Luke obstructed him, rained down slashes and blows.

The figure raised his head, his cowl askew. Luke scrambled back, his arm across Maria and Lily. The lanterns dimmed. Eyes within eyes shined down upon them.

Two hands snatched Luke's and Maria's muzzles, wrenched them away from Lily. A staunched cry came from the cheetahgirl, her wailing silenced by terror. Her parents' muffled screams gave way to squelches and pattering. A hiss ensued, the sound like water on fire. Crackling came after, the silhouettes of her parents thin, desiccated.

The Black Star held one in each hand, the effulgence of his eyes on Lily. The cheetahgirl panted, her breaths broken by pained sobs, her body curled against the corner.

The Black Star spoke. "_They're mine now. You can't have them._"

A pause. He turned away from her. The corpses rasped upon the floor. The door opened before him. The dying light from the sky gave Lily one final vision of her parents before The Black Star left her.

Their eyes were gone.

The door slammed shut. Lily bawled, alone and in the dark.


	9. Chapter 9

"Huh," Goon said at the warped dark sky. "Ain't that pretty. Anyway..." He canted his head at Spyro, the purple dragon hunched, his teeth clenched and eyes dilated. Goon squatted and leaned his head forward. "Aw, come on. Raziela ain't that ugly."

Raziela snarled down at him, "Not funny, Goon! We came here to kill not to joke!"

Goon cast a dubious look at her. "I'm with a walking one, what do you expect?"

Raziela sucked her teeth. "A little bit of _pertinence _would save you a lot of..." She tilted her at Spyro. "What's wrong with him?"

Goon nearly retorted until Spyro caught his attention again. The feral took a step forward, his head askew.

Spyro's claws clenched the grass, his breathing ragged and wings spread. White luminescence coalesced off his eyes. He tossed his head up, and a stentorian roar resounded from him, guttural, abandoned. He lurched upon his trembling fours. "Black Star."

Cynder's sight shifted from the ferals to Spyro. "Where?"

Spyro strained out his words. "Don't know...close...the eyes...through his eyes." He swallowed, his breaths shallow. "He's killed two already."

Hunter rushed forward and grabbed Spyro's shoulder. He pointed at Raziela and Goon. "Spyro! That's them!" Spyro's quaking head rose, his eyes as glowing slits. Hunter backpedaled from him. "Spyro..."

Spyro took a languid step towards Raziela and Goon. His purple scales darkened to midnight, and a frigid white aura slithered around him. Hunter joined Cynder's side. "What's happening to him?"

Cynder didn't have time to explain. "A gift and a curse. I don't know why he's..." She shouted to Spyro, "Nothing left!"

Spyro didn't acknowledge her. She shouted the words again. No reaction. He took another step towards Raziela and Goon.

Raziela and Goon stepped back, the energy from Spyro like a cold closing fire. Raziela said nervously, "Goon?"

"Yeah?" Goon said with a cringe.

"Have you seen that before?"

"No."

A moment of cogitation. "What should we do?"

A bright blue sphere of flame barreled towards them. The two dove from its path. The element left a long blackened trail in its wake.

Goon said, "That."

Raziela shrieked, "Ya think?"

"Again."

"Again?"

Spyro lunged at them. He reared his paw back, his sight on Goon. The fire concentrated around his arm. Goon's image blurred. Spyro ignored the phenomenon and brought his arm down. His power made contact with a hiss and boom, an explosion of soil and grass.

Spyro searched the smoking crater. Nothing. Crackling energy flashed to the right of his periphery. He brought his arm up just as Goon jabbed with weapon. The tips pierced Spyro's forearm, absorbed the slithering azure element. Double or Nothing now seethed with Spyro's power.

Goon palmed Spyro's muzzle and yanked out the horns. The coruscating power cast an amethyst glow upon the feral's russet scales. Goon's smug expression shifted to confusion as his arm trembled. "The hell?"

Spyro's dementia receded, and his cognizance returned. He realized then: Goon's weapon leeched his exposed element. The feral, however, struggled to contain it. Spyro exhaled a gout of fire at Goon. The air shimmered with its heat, and his opponent's gold eyes reflected the roiling flame.

Goon grabbed his own forearm and directed his charged Double or Nothing at the fire. "Need this back?" The tips of his weapon crackled, and a cerulean bolt flashed forth and struck Spyro's chest. Spyro reeled back, tumbled and rolled, his body battered and vision blurred.

Goon sprinted towards him, his weapon poised to impale. A smoky black figure obstructed him, the feral's scales alight with the red glow of her eyes. Cynder spread her wings, the tips hazed in blackness. Goon halted and peered up at her. "Uh, hi. You mad?"

Cynder struck his jaw and launched him into the air. He landed on his back and exhaled upon impact. He managed to croak, "Why so much hate?"

Cynder followed up only to be distracted by the cracking air from Raziela's Shattersound. A concussive forced surged towards the dragoness. Cynder turned and exhaled, and a great gale shrieked forth. The energy from the two waves met with a deafening clap, a dissipating pillar of force.

The debris cleared. Raziela and Cynder glared at each other. Raziela's clawed feet kicked up grass, and her spear sung as it swung towards Cynder. The dragoness bobbed her head only for the butt end of the weapon to meet her throat. Raziela flipped the weapon, the bladed end aimed for Cynder's head.

Cynder's serpentine neck wound away from the blade, and her paw connected with the feral's jaw. Raziela staggered and crouched as she recovered from the blow. Cynder fought for air, wheezed as it gradually came back.

Goon leaped to his feet as Spyro barreled towards him, the dragon's body within a shroud of fire. Goon chuckled, his weapon ready to absorb the flames.

Spyro's fire extinguished. A gauntlet of sharpened ice sickles formed around his paw as he cocked his arm, its frozen blades intent upon Goon's abdomen. Goon bowed his body. The tips of the gauntlet snagged him, and a knifing cold pain reeled him back, the bloody gashes on his belly frozen.

Spyro splayed his paw. A plume of gelid mist erupted from the gauntlet. He tilted his head at Goon.

Goon tilted his head in return. "So? I can do that too." He made a hissing sound and shook his weapon. Spyro retorted with an underhand strike. Goon caught the gauntlet between his weapon. He pivoted his hips and struck Spyro's chin with a hooking palm and collapsing elbow. Spyro retaliated with a headbutt.

Goon stumbled as blood trickled from his nostrils. He regained his balanced, and with a flick of his wrist a plume of gelid air erupted from Double or Nothing. He grinned. "Looky what I can do."

An idea came to Spyro, a risky one, but one that made sense to him when he considered the material of Goon's weapon. He exhaled, and the air hummed as a sharp burst of lightning shot towards Goon.

Goon blurred to the side. Spyro grunted and smirked. "You can only hold one, can't you?"

"Um..." Goon thinned his lips. "Can too."

"Can what?"

"Exactly."

Spyro blinked. The air grew thick with ozone, and a bright electrifying dome spanned from him. The electricity impacted Goon, and he dug his weapon into the ground to arrest his momentum. He rose to his fours and thrust Double or Nothing, and from the tips came a barrage of glacial slivers. Spyro darted off angle, evaded the majority of the swarm. Several slivers embedded into his shoulders and forearms, a needling pain that chilled and numbed his muscles.

Goon's weapon now seethed with crackling, ocher light. "Figured you wanted that one back too..." He gaped. "Oh yay." He backpedaled as Spyro rained down slashes from two bladed ice gauntlets. Goon moved up angle to Spyro's periphery, his thrust aimed at the dragon's temple.

A wall of black brambles rose from the ground, arrested Goon's weapon. Goon yanked, only for the walls to fall. Spyro's horns rammed Goon's head, his paw at the feral's throat. Spyro whirled him to the ground. He inhaled: another torrent of flame. A great bellow of stream erupted upon contact. He slid back from the heat only for Goon to emerge from the vaporized ice. Goon shook the ice shield's remnants from his hand. "Nifty, ain't it?"

The feral was unaware of the dark dragoness behind him.

Cynder's tail struck Goon across his back. The dragoness whirled around, caught sight of Raziela's advance. Cynder batted Raziela's stab to the side. Her and the female feral briefly locked eyes. Cynder swiped. Raziela weaved under the attack, and her weapon sliced up at an angle across the dragoness' chest.

Cynder bobbed her head back. The feral's blade left a red gash across her neck. The dragoness inhaled through clenched fangs, breathed a stream of venom that rippled through the air. Raziela skidded back and pivoted, and her legs pumped as she tried to circumvent the homing acid. It gained on her, bit at her scales. The feral cringed, and with a cry she spun Shattersound. The weapon pulled the poison into a cyclone, dispersed it as she released a deafening shriek.

Cynder countered with a wall of wind, pushed the poison back towards Raziela. The female feral hadn't expected the counter. She shielded herself behind her weapon, her eyes shut.

Goon intercepted, and the acidic droplets flowed into his weapon. Its horns glowed a brilliant green, and with a wave of his arm he sent an arc of poison back at Cynder, who narrowly ducked the attack. He said to Raziela, "You're welcome."

Raziela shoved Goon away from the path of an electrical sphere. She lent him a smug look just as Spyro rushed in. The ferals parted. Raziela faced off against Spyro. Her weapon revolved through the air in figure-eights, her red eyes narrowed.

She cycled Shattersound over her head. Spyro took the opening only to be intercepted by her tail, her singing weapon in its wake. Spyro dropped height, and a tinnitus rung in his ears as the blades passed his head. He waited for her preemptive tail-swipe.

He caught the end of her tail between his fangs and bit down. Blood spurted from the perforations, the taste of hot saline down his gullet. Raziela shrieked with an intensity that rattled Spyro's vision, and his ears throbbed against the pitch. He sought his equilibrium as Raziela bore down upon him, his evasion compromised by his skewed depth perception. Raziela's whirling strikes nicked him, cut him, gouged him.

A brief pause in the feral's flurry. Spyro's paw snaked out and seized the weapon. He yanked, and his horns connected with her skull. Raziela cried out again but didn't give ground. Spyro slung his other arm around her neck and drove her to the ground. He bit at her neck as the feral writhed beneath him, retaliated with her own heated snaps.

She clouted him beneath his jaw line, dazed him. She scrabbled to her feet and reclaimed Shattersound, swung it with abandon. Spyro caught another opening only for two stabbing prongs to sink into his ribcage. He pivoted, his attacker now a blur.

A whisper in his hear. Goon said, "Hi."

Spyro turned only to to receive a blow from his other side. Goon moved with unnatural speed, left a trail of darkness in his wake. Spyro recognized the signature: Cynder's darkness. The red feral switched between elements with every opportunity.

Spyro rose on his haunches and brought his paws together. The ground beneath him moaned and rumbled in anticipation. He struck the earth. A fractal of fissures circled out from him, and a pale green light emanated as they opened.

Goon stumbled and fell. His clawed hand grabbed a hold of the edge. He cast his sight down: a dark pit beneath him. Another rumble ensued as the wall of soil across from him approached, threatened to swallow him. He summoned the darkness from his weapon, to phase out of this compromised position. Nothing. His weapon was drained.

A strong hand wrenched him from the closing fissure. He met Raziela's enraged expression with a smile. "Nice save. You seem upset."

Raziela screamed, "YOU'RE GETTING THE TREE LATER!" She canted her head behind her.

Cynder manifested behind them within a black plume. Raziela swiped at her, the dragoness' form a wisped illusion. Cynder's tail swept both ferals' legs out from underneath them. The dragoness' spiked tail lifted, aimed for Raziela's belly. Goon caught the attack between Double or Nothing, twisted the dragoness' tail and yanked as the serrated horns threshed her scales.

Cynder howled and reared towards Goon, her maw agape, teeth intent on Goon's jugular. Goon wrestled with the dragoness, his head back as she snapped at him. Raziela lunged to Cynder's other side, her weapon's blades at the dragoness' ribcage.

A globe of ice hissed forth and struck the ground near Raziela's feet. The feral backpedaled as another volley came at her, the icy explosions closer with each shot. Raziela summoned her Red Sound: a clicking growl before a piercing scream that ripped through the frozen spheres. Spyro rolled out of the way. The ringing in his head intensified.

His scales rose. The air thinned, took on a different cold, a moist one, the scent of it thick with ozone. The heat from battle dissipated. Goon's hold on Cynder's tail slackened. Cynder pulled himself from him, her sight to the south, near the cave. She ambled to Spyro's side, stared alongside him.

Raziela slowly walked back to Goon, her Shattersound held to her chest. The ferals' and dragons' hearts hastened, the beginnings of vertigo adrift in their heads.

A figure shuffled towards them, swathed in filthy rags, his head down. In his hands were two desiccated corpses, their flesh shriveled, heads lifelessly hung. The dead limbs dragged in intervals, counterpointed by the Black Star's footsteps.

He stood several paces away from Spyro and Cynder, his head down. He tossed the bodies at their paws. Spyro and Cynder stepped back, flinched. Spyro asked him, "Why did you kill them?"

The Black Star said nothing. Spyro asked him again. "Why did you kill them?" He menaced the figure. "I know who you are, damn it! Answer me!"

The figure splayed his palm out. Reality shimmered around it, projected forth. The power flung Spyro onto his back. Cynder rushed towards the Black star only to be swatted aside. She tumbled, her jaw streaked in blood.

Goon and Raziela exchanged a glance. Goon said to her, "You first."

Raziela sneered at him. "You afraid?"

"No. I just like living."

She rolled her eyes at him and brandished Shattersound. With swift strides she closed in on the Black Star. Her weapon took on a life of its own, curved and sung through the air. The blades hissed towards the Black Star's torso.

The weapon didn't penetrate. Raziela's brow creased in exertion. She pushed again. The blades couldn't find purchase. The Black Star brushed the weapon aside and snatched Raziela's quills. She lashed out in return, yowled. The deity shoved her to the ground, dragged her. He walked towards Goon.

Goon put his weapon between him and the approaching figure. The feral circled him, sized him up. "So...What's your name?"

The Black Star didn't answer. Goon replied, "Haven't heard that one. So yeah...Think you're strong, huh? Bet you can't..." He pointed to the cave. "Throw her over that."

Raziela snarled, "Are you serious?"

"Yeah, you'd survive," Goon said. "Don't worry, I have this under control."

"No you don't."

"Yes I do."

"GOON!"

The Black Star grabbed Goon's horn and wrenched him to the ground. Goon muttered, "Oh. That happened." He said up to the Black Star, "So...Where we goin'?"

The Black Star turned his head towards the cave and ambled towards it with Goon and Raziela in his hands. Spyro and Cynder rose to their fours, pursued the deity. Spyro exhaled, and a globe of fire screamed towards the Black Star and his hostages.

Goon aimed the tips of Double or Nothing at the incoming fireball. "Cheap shot." Spyro's flame struck an invisible dome, became as a liquid, rolled and dimmed onto the grass before it smoldered and died. Goon lowered his weapon, his lip curled in confusion. "Raziela."

Raziela kicked wildly. "What?"

"This ape just saved us from that."

"And?"

"I think that might be bad."

Cynder's form faded, became as pitch as she teleported towards the figure. She obstructed him, her paw laced in tendrils as she reared her arm.

The Black Star tilted his head up. Blinding rays came forth from the cowl, burned the darkness from Cynder. She reeled from him as her body burned and smoked. She renewed her assault only for her own element to rise from the ground: black hands that seized her limbs, tethered her.

Spyro sprinted towards her and wrapped his arm around her neck, freed her from the grasping hands. The two dragons turned to The Black Star, the ferals helpless in his hands.

The deity shoved them against the cave's exterior. Light flowed from his hands and into the stone, where it pooled into irregular curves and wedges. The stone became as a viscous liquid, snared the ferals' arms and legs as it solidified.

Spyro and Cynder ran towards The Black Star, their rising panic addled by anger. Spyro shouted, "Why are you doing this? What are you trying to prove?"

The Black Star canted his head at them. He spread his arms: a challenge. Spyro and Cynder united their breaths, channeled a coiled stream of fire and venom, orange and jade, bathed The Black Star in the destructive elements. The air warped with heat, smoked with burning grass and acrid soil.

The Black Star, unscathed, lowered his arms. Spyro's lip curled, his mind addled with incredulity, fear. "_What. Are. You._" The Black Star didn't respond. Spyro roared, "_ANSWER ME!_"

The Black Star walked over to the destroyed patch of ground and splayed his hand above it. From the charred patch of land sprung virescent life: long grass accentuated with wild flowers, rooting vines that wound through the ground. He turned his head to Spyro, waited.

Spyro wet his throat. "I'm asking the wrong questions." He eased his roiling mind. With slow, steady words he asked, "What do you want?"

A low wind passed, carried a barely audible growl. The Black Star clenched his fist. "You will know." The greenery beneath him shivered, wilted.

Spyro shook his head down at the dead plant life. "Destruction? Death? What?"

The Black Star turned to the ferals. He addressed Spyro. "I care not for such seams. What you label is the nadir of essence, the ebbing before the crest."

Cynder stepped towards him. "What is it you seek then?"

The deity turned his head towards her, his eyes dim, narrowed. "The nuances between, in all."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He turned away from the ferals, his steps languid. "Follow me." Spyro and Cynder hesitated. After a moment they followed, their shoulders bunched, muscles tense. The Black Star extended his arms, and to his sides flowed a stream of blackening grass, dying foliage that rekindled with life, cycled between the two. "What you fight for is the movement of essence. You pull at forces beyond you, the lifetimes of a world a blink within existence."

Spyro understood what he said. "In the context you speak of, yes. We're small, beyond small. But that's not why I fight."

"Of course." The Black Star stopped and clasped his hands together. He swept them out, and with a gesture a long line of iron bark trees shot forth from the ground, their branches lined in shivering, silver leaves. "That is why they all fought."

Spyro's breath caught. "All?"

The Black Star turned towards Spyro. "Little spirit. I have seen many of you burn, as numerous as the night's bounty, and with the breath of time extinguished."

Spyro gnashed his teeth. "I don't fade that easily."

A still moment. The iron bark trees ignited: great burning candles lined in formation. Spyro and Cynder gasped, the glow from the fire iridescent upon their scales. The refracted light barely illuminated the Black Star's features, the contours of his face black with shadow. "You are more than just essence. You are its aberrations, cognizant, your lives dictated by need, actions painted by circumstance. Base. Unpredictable."

He curled his fingers, and the flames behind him died with his clenched fist. "I do not seek your seam. It is too easily cut."

"Then just say it!" Spyro hissed through clenched teeth. "I don't understand! Are you saying you don't want to kill us?"

"_Not. Your. Seam._" The Black Star's hand cut through the air. The trees dissolved into ash, were carried away by the wind in a cloud of gray. "I want what you want."

Scorn spread across Spyro's face. "To save Avalar?"

"The cost, little spirit. Always a cost. You know that."

"I'm not giving you anything."

The Black Star turned his head to the ferals, his steps ponderous as he neared them. "I don't want anything from you. I want to give you something."

"Me?"

"Both of you." The Black Star beckoned the ferals, and the stone of the cave's exterior released their legs. Their arm restraints protracted, and a convex slab of stone curved from the wall and into their backs, forced them to their knees, bodies bowed and torsos spread.

Spyro and Cynder padded over to the display. Cynder asked the Black Star, "What is this? Why did you bind them?"

A beat of thought. The Black Star said, "They are tokens."

Cynder looked over at Raziela and Goon, the ferals' upper bodies stretched. Their pained countenances belied their fear. The dragoness asked him, "Tokens of what?"

"Your dedication to Avalar."

Spyro scoffed. "Sacrifices? We're not killing for you."

The Black Star shook his head. "I am not who you kill for. I am not Avalar, nor is the crippled world you walk on." He pointed to the side. "Look to the east."

They turned their heads to the east. The plateaus innards erupted with soil, black silt that sprouted vegetation, land that conjoined the patchwork terrain. Below them came a jarring rumble, the growl and moan of tectonic plates.

The Black Star denoted no sign of exertion. He spoke over the rising din. "I can give you the land you knew, undo the damage of the failed destroyer." Hills formed where plateaus once stood. Arid patches of land grew anew with greenery, and the sloping lands bristled with trees, the undulating terrain around them choked in life.

Speechless, Spyro soaked in the surroundings. Gentler memories came to him, the short-lived respite from war a sweet and far siren. He craved that time, didn't want to lose it again. A dull ache formed in his chest, his altruism a millstone. "Why would you do this for us?"

The Black Star lowered his hand and surveyed his work. "This isn't for you." He angled his head to Raziela and Goon. He said to Spyro, "You're familiar with sacrifice. All I ask now is that you consummate the severance. Cut the seams."

Dubiously, Spyro asked him, "Then why bind them?"

"Because they will struggle. Their deaths will be put to use."

Cynder took a step back, uncertain as to what the Black Star alluded to. "What do you mean 'put to use?'"

The Black Star pointed at the ferals. A light wind furled his rags. "Eat them. Alive."


	10. Chapter 10

Spyro's throat dried. He always killed his prey before feeding. His prey didn't include ferals.

Goon said to Spyro, "Don't listen to him! 'Cause...you shouldn't eat anything red. I mean look at me: do I look appetizing to you?" He turned his head to Raziela. "And I'm pretty sure she'll give you food poisoning. Not to mention the quills..."

Stone barbs grew from the ferals' wrist bindings. They stifled their cries, their teeth clenched as blood curved down the thew of their forearms, briefly pooled upon their veins before it dripped down.

The Black Star addressed Spyro and Cynder. "In the heat of bloodlust their end was inevitable. Blood for Avalar, and yet you hesitate."

Spyro shook off the deity's words. "It isn't the same. They could fight before. They're helpless now."

"And the cloven beasts?" The Black Star questioned. "Did they pose a threat? Or the birds of prey? Is your hunger dictated by pride, then?"

Cynder stepped forward. "You confuse pride with free thinking. They're a different kind of animal."

A wry grin tinged The Black Star's countenance. "An ability you mistake as free, a road that you want to see, never minding the forests that force your path." The words settled with a deepening weight. "You do not realize your fortune. In my youth I was a destroyer. Time tempers the mind, yet the blade never rusts. I needn't cut your seam."

Spyro's vision alternated between the ferals and The Black Star. "It can't be this simple. There's more to this."

"And how are you to prove that?" the deity asked. "What have you to gain for your obstinacy?"

"A clear conscious."

"While your people die upon a doomed world."

Spyro's nostrils flared. His muzzle creased with rising anger. "You can't predict the future, so stop trying to manipulate me."

Amused, The Black Star replied, "No. I cannot tell the future. But I can show you." He extended his arm to the west, and a great cacophony ensued, a muffled wailing of stone. The ground shook beneath them, and at their height they witnessed a great splintering of the land below.

The dragons and Hunter sprinted to the edge. They stopped, their cheeks wet with a sudden despair, voices denuded by terror. A great hole formed, gargantuan, a yawning mouth within the land, its stone teeth sharp as breaths of dust bellowed from its maw.

Cynder spun towards The Black Star, her voice strident. "Stop this! Stop this now."

Yet The Black Star denoted no exertion. He ambled towards them, his swaying rags heavy with stains. The deity's voice rung through the cries of stone. "What you're witnessing was an eventuality, a fault, an ulcer within your world. I merely pushed it."

Cynder's hateful eyes narrowed at the deity. "That could have taken years! If ever! It could have healed."

"Could it?" The Black Star challenged. "And with what eyes did you glimpse that possibility? Of hope? Defiance?" He turned his head towards the great chasm. "In a few moments the hole will settle, will clot with stone and soil."

With those words came a subsequent cessation: the tectonic plates stilled, and the debris settled. The Black Star went on. "I give only the truth, the limits you knew cut down." He lowered his head, the pinpoints of his eyes brighter, the glare too bright to behold directly. "There is only the expanse now, little spirits. No forest to obscure your ignorance."

Spyro waved off the words. "This has nothing to do with our ignorance. There's more to this than you're letting out."

The deity enunciated, "Consummate."

Spyro said in abhorrence, "What you're asking is insane."

"As is your unwillingness to save your people."

"_I've given more than you can imagine._"

Mirthless, The Black Star chuckled. "They all did, thought. Which is why I make this simple for you." He directed his open hand to the ferals. "Consummate."

Spyro turned his head away, detested the logic that ran through his mind. Nothing harmed this deity, this creature that moved worlds at a whim. He could fight him, but to what purpose?

He remembered flying with Cynder, the rolling verdure beneath them. Despite Avalar's frailness they cherished both its dregs and flora, the barely patched terrain a tarnished gem, its facets irregular, sullied.

How much red had he seen, the memory of its heat still fresh upon his scales.

Two more lives would bring back paradise, for him, Cynder, everyone. He turned to his mate, the dragoness' lips parted, eyes thin with rumination. She too weighed the offer.

The Black Star's fingers extended and curled as he waited. Spyro and Cynder glimpsed each other out of the corner of their eyes, the exchange mutual, silent. With a slight turn of their heads they looked upon the ferals. The ferals glared back, their fear shackled.

Spyro made the first step towards them. A taut hand grabbed his shoulder. "Spyro..." Spyro faced Hunter, the cheetahman haggard, drained. Hunter shook his head at him.

Spyro looked over at The Black Star, who observed with an impassive air. The dragon turned his attention back to Hunter. "Are you serious? These two killed your clansmen!"

The outburst stirred nothing within the cheetahman. "They did. And I don't know if I'll ever join my kinsmen again, wherever they are, if such a place even exists." He directed his hand to the ferals. "If killing them would bring them back then I'd be averting my eyes right now." He gave Spyro a slow shake of his head. "But it won't."

"But we're not talking about just them," Spyro argued. "We're talking about all of Avalar. Healed. No torn land, no earthquakes. Everything whole again. Who's to say he can't─"

"Spyro..." Hunter glanced at The Black Star. His fur raised and his ears flattened. "Life's not meant to be given that freely."

"Did you not see what he did? I don't understand why you're arguing this."

Hunter didn't respond. He turned his head to the desiccated corpses, the flaked flesh upon hardened cartilage and bone. "Life's not meant to be given that freely."

Spyro followed Hunter's gaze. The brief phantasmagory during The Black Star's arrival, during Spyro's delirium, gave him a glimpse of these cheetahmen before their deaths: dread, dilated pupils ringed with amber, their vision obscured by a hand.

Another scream, this one higher, lost, confused. It donned on Spyro then. He said softly, "They had a child." He spun towards The Black Star. "The child. What did you do to her?"

The Black Star held his hands to his sides. "She is alive."

"Why'd you spare her?"

A smile. Genuine mirth. "A cost, little spirit. Always a cost."

Spyro stepped back from the deity, his breath short. "That's what you meant by seams." He shook his head. "It's not life and death to you anymore." Another step back. His scales raised. "Nuances between."

The Black Star chuckled. "Now you understand."

Cynder joined Spyro's side. The dragoness' heart beat against her chest. "You killed a little girl's parents just to see her suffer?"

The deity stepped towards them. "I didn't need to watch. Her emptiness is more than familiar to me. Blood and flesh changes, but the cry carries the same seam."

The mention of "seam" confused Cynder. "But you said..." Disgust spread across her face. "You broke her spirit."

The Black Star turned to the side, his sight to the east. "Your distrust means nothing to me. You will not truly die for your world." He raised his open palm. Tendrils emerged from the new land, multiplied into a web of rotting black, overtook the life and choked it. The hills sloughed and sloped down into flatter land, pooled in great cesspools before the decaying runoff dripped down the deteriorating plateaus. The wind carried the scent of sepsis, of stagnated death.

The dragons, ferals, and cheetahman turned their heads away from the stench, from the growing eyesore in the distance. The Black Star turned to them. The pinpoints of his eyes erupted with light.

"_Ten days._"

He knelt and drove his fist into the ground. Writhing, lecherous black bands manifested around his arm and burrowed into the soil. Their flailing, serpentine bodies quickly disappeared, left a puckered, swollen hole of decomposition.

He turned towards the corpses, and his eyes burned brighter as he approached them. He raised his cupped hands, and from the soil erupted liquid streams of light that seeped into the bodies. They shook and convulsed, their maws open in a silent scream.

The Black Star brought his hands together. The two corpses collided with each other, adhered. Their heads tossed as bone and joint and cartilage combined. Thin, wiry arms sprouted from its back, sides, shoulders, its semblance like that of an arachnid, its clawed fingers tapered to a point. Its malformed ribs pierced its blanched skin, its breathing a mimicry of life. Its empty eyes and mouth leaked with fluid illumination as its heads shook. It scuttled to The Black Star's side.

"This isn't the last I have for you," The Black Star said. He turned his back to them, left them with the new threat as he trudged towards the dying terrain.

The creature's trembling heads turned to Spyro. It stilled. Slowly, it raised a clawed hand and pointed at him. Its jaws quivered as it spoke with a disembodied voice.

"_Savior._"

Its many hands met the ground. It bounded towards Spyro, the hands of its shoulders outstretched as it expelled light from its mouths.

Two thoughts went through Spyro's head: counter or evade, yet he didn't recognize the element the creature wielded. He sidestepped, and the liquid light spattered upon the grass, the blades alight with white, the stems black. Gradually it dimmed and withered, left only a dark, cantankerous mass.

The creature pivoted towards Spyro. Its many hands swiped at him, a myriad of blows within a second. Cynder approached from the rear, exhaled threads of darkness that sought the creature, tethered its arms and burned into it.

The creature thrashed, its maws agape as its eyes burned brighter. Spyro nearly rushed in until he sensed an amassing of energy. He backpedaled just as a bright flash dispelled Cynder's darkness, burned it away.

Cynder changed tactics. A virulent green aura surrounded her paws as she closed in on the creature. She struck, and her claws sank and sizzled into the thin flesh of its back. The creature reared towards her, and its arms snagged her and pulled her towards its gaping mouth, a globe of bright energy within.

Spyro swung: the blades of his ice gauntlet sheared off the arms that clenched Cynder. Black blood and light spilled from the severed limbs. It tossed its heads up and screamed. Another amassing of energy, and a great dome of light burst from the abomination.

Spyro and Cynder stumbled and stilled. The damage didn't reflect physically. A daze came over them, followed shortly by blackening vision. Their adrenaline, their inner fire, dwindled. A hollow formed within them, slackened their muscles. Apathy prevented their defense, even as the creature advanced towards them.

A hiss and the thunk of metal in flesh. The creature snarled and turned to the side. Hunter already had another arrow nocked. The creature ran towards him only to receive an arrow through one of its eyes. It tossed its head and renewed its assault.

Hunter backpedaled, but was no match for the creature's alacrity. With a practiced motion he hung his bow around his neck and drew his sword.

A dark blur. Cynder tackled the creature and flurried it, didn't give it time to counter as she sustained the barrage of blows. Spyro recovered shortly after, and with a quick breath unleashed a sphere of fire that impacted the creature's side with a roar and boom.

The creature's smoking form rolled across the grass. An agonized whine came from it, its lower body limp as it dragged itself by its front hands towards the dragons. One head slackened while the other rolled, its slathering jaws aglow with dying light.

Cynder brought her spiked tail down upon the creature's head. It pierced with a hollow crunch, and the creature's arms clenched the soil as it convulsed. A small cry came from it. Its body shuddered and its hands loosened before it stilled. Liquid light seeped through its pores, ate away at the epidermis, blackened it.

A charred husk remained, and a light wind carried away the ash.

Spyro didn't savor the victory. He turned his sight to the puckered spot The Black Star had left. "Ten days..." He ran towards the cave with Cynder in tow. He said to her, "Malefor. Malefor must know what that means."

Guilt etched into Cynder's features. "Hopefully."

They reached the cave's entrance and padded down the stone ground, their footfalls a light echo within the confined space. They halted and flinched.

Their shadows stretched across the meager light from the entrance. The dim illumination revealed numerous dark droplets that concentrated near Malefor's reposed form, the dark dragon's eyes barely open, the crusted blood down his collar, chest, and belly.

"Malefor!" Spyro ran to him, lightly shook him. "Are you alright? Can you hear me?"

Malefor gave a languid turn of his head. He closed his eyes and nodded.

Cynder sided herself next to Spyro. She offered, "The effect should have worn off by now."

"Maybe," Spyro replied, "but we don't know how The Black Star affected him. Even I lost it for awhile."

Malefor opened his rheumy eyes. He parted his tongue from the roof of his mouth, his respiration weak. "What do you want?"

"The Black Star," Spyro replied. "He said something to us: 'Ten days'."

Malefor's frown deepened. He slanted his cheek upon the ground. "I know what it means."

"What did he mean?" Spyro asked. "The end? Our death? What?"

A sad chuckle came from Malefor. "No..." He tensed his eyelids, his voice muffled upon the stone. He rocked his head. "No...not an end."

Spyro gently coaxed him. "What is it then?"

Malefor sighed, and with a strained effort raised his head. His limbs shook as he tried to sit on his haunches, only for his muscles to give out. Spyro and Cynder helped him up, the dark dragon's head downcast. They released him and gave him his distance, waited for his answer.

Another moment passed. Malefor said, "Ten days till perdition."

Spyro asked, "Perdition?"

Malefor looked away. His eyes wandered about the shadow, his yellow irises aglow before the pale light. "In ten days Avalar will reach the nadir of life."

"I don't understand."

Malefor nodded, his lips thin. "You won't until you see it."

Cynder asked, "See what?"

Malefor gathered his thoughts. "Life does not abide by the imagery we associate it with. How it sustains itself, its form, its actions, aren't always ones of bounty and beauty. There is life in even the foulest things."

Spyro recalled the rotting lands The Black Star had formed. "The decomposition. The stench..."

Malefor nodded. "In ten days that will be Avalar's fate. The totality of our world as bottom feeders, a symbiosis that poisons us slowly, barely sustains us."

Spyro's stomach curdled at the thought. "How long will that last?"

Malefor, crestfallen, raised his sight to Spyro, his eyes as crescent embers. "Beyond our deaths."

The notion struck Spyro. "Beyond?"

Malefor rose to his fours, his steps ponderous as he passed Spyro and Cynder, his body a silhouette before the light. "The visions told of a transformation. Life as a whole stripped of self. Our own world will take us, connect us, feed us while its feeds upon us."

Cynder's muzzle furled in disgust. "That in ten days?"

Malefor nodded. "Count your hours. Cherish them. Time will mean nothing on the tenth day."

Spyro absorbed the words, placed them against his resolve. "You're helping us."

Malefor's eyes widened. He turned to them, his words weighed by doubt. "Help? You met him! Saw what he can do. How am I going to help?"

"Figure something out," Spyro replied as he made his way towards the entrance. Cynder followed him out.

Spyro's and Cynder's shadows flitted about Malefor's pensive face. After a moment he padded after them. "Where are you going?"

Spyro replied, "To threaten the help." He strode around the cave to its side. The Black Star's restraints had lifted, the ferals in the middle of an argument. Spyro, Cynder, and Malefor sat, listened. The ferals were oblivious to their presence.

Goon said, "...And this is what I was talking about."

Raziela crossed her arms and turned her head away. "Not listening."

"You want an ear grab?"

"You want the tree?"

"I'll take that risk." He made a reach for her ear.

Raziela bobbed her head away and growled in return. She spat, "Fine." She brought her manic face to his muzzle and perked her ears up. "I guess could you could say that I'm all..." She flicked her ears. "_Ears._"

"Cute," Goon said. "Anyway, maybe this is just me, but I generally don't like being tied to stone...by stone...by some freak without a muzzle. Maybe you do but I don't judge."

Raziela groaned. "What are you getting at?"

"Well...One: the cheetahman? You know, the one who's buddies we kinda used to paint the grass?"

"What about them?"

"Well his _pals_, who just happen to be _dragons_, nearly killed us. All because of your weird, little vices."

"It's not a vice!" Raziela defended. She raised her chin in affirmation. "It's a lifestyle...Wait, I meant─"

"I'm right," Goon said. "Accepting is the first step. Second step: not killing everything because you're having a tantrum."

"But they make me so mad!"

"Me too!" Goon shot back. "I get frustrated. But you don't see me relocating an entire village off a cliff."

"They had it coming!"

Goon blinked in shock. "That was supposed to be a metaphor."

Raziela looked off to the side, her expression coy. "That one doesn't count."

"Since when?"

"Now."

"Anyway," Goon pressed, "the winged hernia and darky the bitch are the least of our concerns."

"No they're not!"

"Raziela," Goon reprimanded, "I want you to consider this."

Raziela snapped, "Consider. What?"

"The idea that the glowy-eyed _monkey_ is better at killing than us."

Raziela's jaw slackened as her ears lowered. "That's _impossible._"

"We saw otherwise," Goon pointed out. "Monkeys aren't supposed to be able to do...well..._that._ This is a bad monkey, Raziela. A very bad monkey, and as much as it hurts me to say it..." He sucked his teeth. "And it does...we may have to..." He swallowed. "May have...Hold on, I need a breath."

Spyro stepped forward. "Help us?"

Both the ferals' lips curled. Goon said, "I was going to consult the other voice in my head, but you _had_ to interrupt." He cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders. "But yeah, that. Ya beat me to it." A wet growl came from the back of his throat. "Yay."

"Good," Spyro replied. "We're going to meet some friends of mine."

Raziela gritted her fangs. "Quads?"

"They are."

Raziela sagged. "Goon," she whined, "can I go crazy again?"

"Too late," Goon replied.

"No!" Raziela protested.

"Too late. We're going."

"I don't wanna!"

"Then stay here."

Raziela hugged Shattersound to her chest and pouted. "Fine. I'm gonna stand right here."

"Doesn't matter. You're still gonna hear."

"I can cover my ears!"

"No hands big enough."

Raziela shouted something that made Hunter grimace, something about Goon's tail, a tree, and target practice. Hunter approached Spyro, his weary countenance marked with bemusement. "Spyro. Do you really want them with you?"

Spyro considered that for a moment. He shrugged. "Help's scarce right now. And if we get through this, well...We can always kill them later."

Hunter nodded absently as he watched the ferals bicker. "It's an idea."

Spyro shouted to the ferals, "Come on, we're leaving."

Goon huffed and shouldered Double or Nothing. "Come on, we're leaving."

Spyro shook his head at that. "But I just said..."

Goon strolled away from them. "Yes. I just said that." Raziela dejectedly followed as Shattersound dragged behind her.

Spyro held out his splayed paw. "But...it's this way..."

"Was wondering when you'd catch on." Goon nearly followed when Spyro went the opposite direction. He past the ferals and lent them a wide-eyed leer. Goon returned the leer before he and Raziela followed the three dragons and cheetahman.

Goon remarked to Raziela, "You know, I think I like him."

Raziela raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

Goon tossed his head up and laughed. "Ah...no."

Hunter cast a cautious glance back at the ferals. Both of them heatedly stared back, their weapons shouldered. He did his best to ignore them. He said to Spyro, "Your vision, the girl you mentioned...I think I need to find her."

Spyro asked him, "Do you have any idea where she could be?"

Hunter nodded. "I think so. We've explored outside territories, caught sight of a small home." He shrugged a shoulder. "We let it be. They weren't encroaching on anyone. I just hope that little girl..." He dry-swallowed and grimaced. "I can't even imagine. Being so young and facing an evil like that. Just being near him..." He tensed his eyes shut. The tears still came. "I felt sick, Spyro. So sick."

Spyro looked him over. The light wrinkles under the cheetahman's eyes had deepened, his sclera yellowed. "I didn't fair much better. You need rest, Hunter."

"Can't," Hunter replied. "Not with that little girl alone. I'll sleep later."

Cynder craned her neck, her muzzle against Hunter's temple. "We're not letting this go, Hunter. You can rest easy."

Hunter's smile belied his dolor. "I'll never doubt you two."

Cynder's eyes crinkled as she smiled. She asked him, "How long can we accompany you?"

Hunter looked off into the distance. "I should leave now. I don't want her to wander."

Spyro and Cynder nodded in agreement. Spyro said to him, "Keep safe. Get rest."

A sad chuckle came from Hunter's dry throat. "All's willing." After a moment of hesitance he strayed off, his steps brisk.

A sad sigh escaped from Spyro. He turned around and checked on Malefor, the dark dragon's steps heavy, eyes pensive.

Goon poked Malefor. "Hey." He poked him again. "Hey." Another moment. He poked him again. Malefor reared towards Goon and snapped at him. The feral skidded back, his expression smug. "You're it."


	11. Chapter 11

Flame surveyed the land below, his mind at a loss. He and Ember found Spyro's cave, but he hadn't anticipated the surrounding aftermath. The gargantuan hole within the lower level of land stretched nearly to the horizon, a great ulcer within Avalar.

Flame and Ember descended to the ground in a series of slow loops before their fours caught the grass. "Ember," Flame said as he approached the rotting, puckered hole near the cave. "Look at this."

Ember sided herself next to him. Her muzzle wrinkled. "This must be The Black Star's work."

Flame nodded and looked about. The land around them bore signs of battle, the soil scorched or frosted: the lingering effects of elements. "Let's see if they're still here."

They ran towards the cave and stopped at the entrance. Flame called for Spyro and Cynder, but received no answer. The red dragon's brow creased as he voiced his thoughts. "Suppose we could wait, but I get the feeling they're not doing that."

Ember asked, "You mean they won't come back?"

Flame nodded. "After all we saw I think they're trying to stem the problem. But..." He turned back towards the giant hole in the distance. The scarce, mote-laden rays of sun through the overcast couldn't pierce the abyss' depths. "I've never seen anything like this before. How can one creature hold so much power?"

Ember shared the view with him. She pointed out, "Malefor's power was on a similar scale."

"True," Flame said, "but that was with a different intention. This..." He turned his head away from a sudden wind, from the acrid scent of sepsis. "There's nothing purifying about this."

Ember nodded in silent agreement. She squinted as she peered left into the distance, to the cobbled grass lands adjacent to the hole. "I might be able to track them."

Flame canted his head towards her. "There's enough heat?"

"Enough for five dragons, maybe six. We'll have to start with their physical tracks first."

Flame grunted in approval. "Hard to imagine you as the huntress."

She lent him a leer. "Is that right?" She sprung into a light run away from the cave. Flame followed and joined her search, the two nearly side by side. After a few minutes of searching they stopped. Ember pawed at a particular imprint in the grass: longer in proportion to that of a typical dragon. "Ferals. Two of them."

"Ferals?" Flame said. "Why would they be with Ferals?"

"I don't know. They might have had something to do with the fighting back there."

Flame considered that. "Helped or hindered?"

A beat of thought. "Both, maybe."

"Both?" He sneered a little, the thought befuddling. "Guess we'll have to get the answers from them." They further tracked the prints, their rising intrigue marked by their increased pace. "They banded together at some point."

Ember remarked, "Three dragons."

Flame noticed the third set of dragon prints. "Three? Who else would they..." The thought struck him. "Malefor? They brought Malefor?"

"I guess so."

Flame's lip curled. "Hard to imagine him being of use."

"His knowledge," Ember reminded him. "He's the only one who knew The Black Star beforehand."

"And now from the looks of it know him personally." Flame let out a constricted sigh. "I don't see why they need him anymore."

"Maybe as another arm," Ember said. "It's only fitting considering what he's done."

Flame grunted. "Suppose you're right."

Ember gave him a wry smile. "Let's worry about that later. I need some company while I'm looking for their heat trail. Can you do that for me?"

Flame's agitation eased into amusement. "I don't know. I have enough heat for well over five dragons. It might confuse you."

Ember gave him an incredulous look, her cheek dimpled as she smirked. "Is that right?"

"I could be detrimental to this search."

Ember's eyes narrowed, at odds with her smile. "I'm not sure if I like this cocky side."

Flame's playful grin vanished. "Uh...was just trying to―"

The dragoness covered her muzzle and laughed. "It's alright. You're not in trouble."

"Oh, okay."

They continued along in silence, focused on the path before them. Ember looked on with a second sight, the figures she sought as phantom shimmers.

{{}}

Malefor made another swipe at Goon. "Incessant! Bastard! Are you a hatchling in the head?"

"No. You are," Goon said as he strode near Malefor, barely out of his reach. "And you're terrible at tag."

Malefor snapped, "Tag? Did I really just hear you say that?"

"No."

Malefor grunted. "That's what I thought."

Goon darted in and poked the dragon's shoulder. "Tag."

Malefor didn't pursue this time. He shouted to Spyro, "Will you rein this goddamn feral?"

Spyro walked along with Cynder. He gave Malefor a glance. "I don't see the harm. Why don't you calm down?"

Malefor slanted his head. "Calm down? Everything you've witnessed and you have the gall to tell me that?"

Goon spoke for Spyro. "He did. What are you gonna do, huh?" Malefor fumed in silence. Goon added, "Nice collar."

Malefor lunged, quicker this time, his claws at Goon's belly. Metal sung through the air. Shattersound's blades nearly met Malefor's muzzle, the dark dragon's eyes fixed on the weapon. Raziela's eyes were still fixed to the distance. "Off limits. Only I have that pleasure."

Both Malefor and Goon glowered at that. Goon said to her, "You're a freak."

Raziela shouldered her weapon. "And you're still getting the tree."

Spyro and Cynder stopped and turned towards them, assured their neutrality. After a moment they continued their pace. Cynder asked the ferals, "What's this about a tree?"

Raziela raised her head up at the dragoness, eyed her from the bottom of her vision. "It's a disciplinary measure. Kind of an insider thing. Best not to ask anymore."

Cynder raised an eyebrow. "Insider thing?"

"Yeah. An insider thing."

Spyro and Cynder exchanged a glance. Cynder said to Goon, "You're right. She is a freak."

Raziela's ears lowered as she made a move towards Cynder. Goon blocked her way with Double or Nothing. "Raziela," he said with an admonishing air, "remember our talk?"

"_I do_," she said with barely restrained ire. "I just don't care."

"Then start caring. Save it for that monkey's pet freaks. I'm sure we'll see more of them." Goon slowly lowered his weapon. Raziela's stare smoldered upon Cynder for a moment longer. The black dragoness returned the stare, and after a moment the two of them broke eye contact.

Wordlessly, they trekked on through the rocky grasslands, their gaits brisk. Slivers of sun occasionally broke through the choking overcast, released gliding bands of light across the grass before the clouds snuffed them out.

Time trickled on, with only the occasional cough or indistinct mutter from the dragons and ferals. Finally, Spyro spoke, his head lifted at a collection of ruins in the distance. "The Dragon Temple. Or what's left of it."

Malefor tilted his head at the ruins, the faded ocher stone splotched in browns and blacks, strangled by ferns and vines. He huffed a laugh and turned to Spyro. "Oops."

Spyro and Cynder halted. They turned around slowly, their expressions equivocal. "Malefor," Spyro said, "did you just make a joke?"

Malefor carefully chose his words despite his desire to be obstinate. "Well. Only fitting, isn't it?"

"About the temple I was trained in? My guardians' home? The one you took for yourself and destroyed?"

Malefor averted his eyes. "Purely preterite," he reminded Spyro. "Just remember that."

"Tasteless," Spyro said, his words impassive. "Petty."

Malefor shifted uncomfortably. "Well, what do you want? An apology?"

"No need," Spyro said. "Besides, I doubt those three will accept 'sorry'."

Raziela inserted herself into the conversation. "What three? The quads?"

Spyro nodded. "Terrador, Volteer, and Cyril."

Goon snorted. "Those are stupid names."

"This coming from a goon," Spyro retorted, "Named Goon. Doing goon stuff. Do you see where I'm going with this?"

"Yeah," Goon replied. "Goon envy." Spyro blinked at him. Goon said, "Don't worry. It happens to all of us."

Spyro's stare rested on Goon for a spell longer. He turned his head to Raziela. "Hit him."

Raziela smacked Goon upside his head, the red feral at a loss. Goon held his arms to the sides, his muzzle crinkled in agitation. "When do you start taking orders from him?"

"It was more like a request," Raziela said. "I can do requests."

"No," Goon said. "It was more like being a bitch." He stretched his neck forward and grinned.

Raziela scowled down at him. "Don't finish that comment."

Spyro called back to them, "That's enough. Try to keep the fighting at a minimum. I don't know how they'll react to Malefor, if they'll even recognize him."

Through the broken pillars and segmented walls they caught sight of three conversing large dragons: one green, one yellow, one blue. The three dragons' heads turned in unison towards Spyro, their necks craned forward. After a moment they wound around the ruins towards them.

The green dragon, Terrador, led the other two, his bulky body a denotement of his earth element, his scales dappled in red, scarred chest plating and horns a faded ocher. "Spyro," he rumbled with a smile. "Cynder. Where have you been?"

The yellow dragon, Volteer, sided next to Terrador. Volteer's element was that of lightning, and it reflected upon his brilliant yellow scales, his body marked by paler, jagged stripes, his cerulean horns and chest plating etched with age. "An apt question!" he said with his usual unyielding energy. "You're very much missed! Hard to find too." With nary a delay he switched subjects. "Did you not witness that most peculiar squall in the distance? I've never seen anything like that!"

"Volteer," the blue dragon said, his sleek body crystalline, his plating dappled in hoarfrost, "I don't think anyone missed that. Maybe you did, preoccupied as you are in that attic you call a head." Volteer had a retort on the tip of his tongue until he and Terrador noticed the ferals and Malefor. Cyril followed their curiosity and approached the newcomers, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What's all this then?"

It struck Spyro then: the decision to reveal Malefor's identity. He didn't think they would attack the former dark master, but the revelation could compromise the very thing Spyro strove for; a new beginning for Malefor, partitioned from his past. His eyes wandered for an image, something to prime a name. First an M. His eyes darted to the right, where he glimpsed some furrowed soil beyond a cluster of pillars, a ditch for the runoff.

"Mitch," Spyro said, his paw pointed at Malefor. Malefor opened his mouth to object, but he quickly caught on. Spyro continued. "His name's Mitch." He tilted his head up at the ferals. "They're Raziela and Goon."

The three guardians absently nodded at the ferals. Their interest drifted back to Malefor. Terrador remarked, "Strange. He could pass as Malefor's son." He leaned closer. Concern crept across his face as he examined him. "Where are you wings, young dragon?"

Goon stepped forward and put his hand Malefor's shoulder. "Well, ya see," he patronized, "Mitch a special kind of dragon."

"Special?" Cyril interrogated. "Him? He looks more like a prune than a purple dragon."

Goon tsked and waggled his finger. "Fruits and purple dragons, huh? For shame."

Cyril sneered. "What?"

Goon continued. "Mitch is special in a different way. You see, when a feral and a dragon love each other very much, the boy dragon and the girl feral‒"

Terrador staunched him. "We understand." He addressed Raziela. "And you? How did you both come to meet Spyro and Cynder?"

Raziela smacked her tongue. "Well..." She bent her neck towards Spyro and Cynder. "We shared a near death experience." Her arm whipped out and wrapped around Spyro's neck. "Best friends now."

Terrador's eyes shifted between Spyro and Raziela. "Friends, is it?"

"Best...," Raziela squeezed tighter, "_friends._"

Spyro gently pushed Raziela away from him only to find that Goon had sided next to Cynder, the red feral's arm around her neck. "Yup," Goon said. "We've bonded." He canted his head up at her, his teeth bared in a smile. "Haven't we?"

Cynder inhaled through her nose. She said to Terrador, "They're eccentric." She pushed Goon off her. "In case you haven't noticed."

Terrador grunted. He asked them, "The storm in the distance. Do you know what could have caused it?"

Spyro recollected the recent events, cut the emotion from experience. "There's a new threat now. One that I've been dreaming about for some time."

Terrador read the malady upon Spyro's visage. "Not a dream anymore, is it?"

Spyro shook his head. "A lot's happened in a short time, too much to tell for now, but...A figure called The Black Star is here in Avalar. His power's unlike anything I've ever seen."

Volteer stepped closer. "It rivals even Malefor's?"

"What we experienced with Malefor pales in comparison. This thing...It looks like an ape, but smaller, no muzzle. It can..." His mind still struggled to grasp the concept. "Create and kill, and everything in between."

Volteer asked, "Between?"

"He...Wanted us to do something for him. Something cruel. He said he'd restore Avalar to its previous life, before Malefor."

Cyril barked, "Nonsense! Life's not given that freely."

Spyro's visage grew more somber. "You have no idea the truth of those words."

Cyril's incredulity waned. "What do you mean?"

"Hunter said those same words. When The Black Star came to us he came with two corpses, cheetahmen. Our talk with him made us realize something: he's not purely destruction or life. He wishes for perdition, for the very lowest of life."

Terrador shook his head. "I don't understand."

Spyro sought better wording. "He demonstrated his power, brought new life right in front of our eyes. When we didn't agree to his cause he took it away, but...didn't kill it. Rotted it. The stench..." His stomach churned. "The decomposition. He wants to turn all of Avalar into that. Everyone as bottom feeders."

The three guardians reared their heads. Volteer said to Spyro, "You speak of bottom feeders, the ones who eat the diseased, the already dead. How could he create such a metamorphosis? Such evolution takes millenniums."

"The Black Star's been alive for millenniums. Its knowledge is beyond anything we have." He grew frustrated. To word The Black Star proved more difficult than he realized. "Imagine being a destroyer, drunk with power. Ending entire worlds at your desire. After awhile you'd grow tire of it. You'd fine new ways to destroy, not just physically."

A long, low sigh came from Volteer. "Nuances of death then? Of the spirit?"

Spyro nodded. "The cheetahmen I mentioned: they were parents. He killed them to break their daughter's spirit."

Terrador said in disgust, "Why? Why this evil?"

Cynder voiced her experience. "He's a sadist. He knows suffering. The ferals..." She tilted her head at them. "He wanted us to eat them alive."

Goon muttered, "Yummy."

Terrador said in disbelief, "Alive? In exchange for Avalar's renewal?"

"Yes. But..." Cynder's next words rang with guilt. "Part of us wanted to. Hunter helped sway our decision."

Disapproval did not meet The Guardians' eyes. Terrador said in a condolent voice, "You were in the right. Even if The Black Star had kept true to his word, I doubt it would have been for a greater good. There was evil in that offer, I'm sure of it."

Cyril grunted in agreement. "Yes. Wanted to plant a seed I imagine." After further thought he added, "What else would you have done for an alleged greater good? What other evils for a cause?"

"We don't know," Spyro said. "That's what's tearing us up inside. We've killed before for Avalar."

Cyril pointed out, "You didn't have much of a choice, not to mention your age. No one should have seen the things you two saw. Too young for it. I see it in your eyes." He peered closer at Spyro and chuckled. "You're an old coot around the eyes."

Spyro and Cynder laughed a little. "But..." Spyro continued, "This thing...I'm not sure how to stop it. We tried fighting him and...Nothing, I mean nothing worked. Like grasping at air."

The Guardians' exchanged concerned glances. Terrador said to Spyro, "We've never encountered anything like that before. Have you consulted Ignitus?"

"That's how we figured out about him. The Black Star's the reason Malefor went mad to begin with. He wanted to give Avalar a quick death. Now that I've seen what The Black Star wants..." Spyro grimaced and closed his eyes. "I can understand why."

Cyril huffed, albeit the indignation was a mask before his fear. "Well, we'll need to find someone who's ass isn't warming their hands if we're going to figure this out."

Cynder said, "There is someone, Haedrig. He's a mole that's been able to harness the power of both dragons and crystals."

The mention of dragons rung a discordant tone with the Guardians. Terrador asked, "What do you mean by dragons?"

"The bones," Cynder said. She quickly defended Haedrig. "There was no one there to claim them. He means well, Terrador. We've met him."

Terrador's hardening expression softened. "I see. Perhaps we should combine minds, then."

Spyro nodded in agreement. "My thoughts exactly."

Volteer's eyes brightened as his own thoughts came to voice. "Yes, yes! Collaborative cognition for the sake of survival. I haven't felt this kind of camaraderie in what feels like a century! Dragons and the newly found ferals postulating the possibilities against otherwise insurmountable–"

Raziela, with her ears back, released a staccato, "Mah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah."

The Guardians' turned their heads to her. Volteer said, "Excuse you?"

She sang a mellifluous, "Mah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah."

They looked to Spyro for reasoning. Spyro said to them, "I don't know. That's new."

Goon held his hands out. "Wait, I can translate." He cupped his ear.

Raziela gave another, "Mah-ah-ah-ah."

Goon translated, "Yeah. Yellow dragon with the stupid name. That thing you're doing?"

Volteer said indignantly, "What thing?"

"You know. That thing. Where you open your mouth. And we get a headache?"

"A headache?"

"Yeah, that's needs to stop."

From Raziela came a hateful, "_Mah-ah-ah-ah-ah._"

Goon sucked his teeth and cringed. "Oh...Can't say that one out loud." He chirped to Volteer, "But I can give you a hint. Involved your mother. Pack of apes." He rolled his shoulders and sucked his teeth again. "_Bananas._"

Volteer pursed his lips as he mulled over the analogy. "Curious."

"Oh?" Goon said.

"I'm wondering if I can grant the gift of flight to ferals with an ample amount of incline shock to the reproductive area."

It took Goon a moment to process that. "I would need your maternal counterpart to _hypothesize_."

Spyro put himself between Goon and Volteer. "Alright, calm down. Raziela?"

"Yes?"

"Hit him again." Raziela smacked the male feral, who displayed no regret over his remark. Spyro said to Volteer, "You'll get used to him."

"Is that proven?"

"No idea yet. Anyway, we need to get to Haedrig. There's something I need to bring up to him about The Black Star."

"What is it?" Terrador asked as he periodically glanced at Volteer. The yellow dragon was ready for murder.

Spyro replied, "The Black Star keeps creating this white light."

"A white light?" Terrador asked.

"Not always, but it keeps emanating from his eyes. He..." Spyro shook the vision of the Twins from his head, the cheetahmen parents' amalgamation. "He brought those cheetahmen to life, yet he didn't. He made a monster out of them. That same light came from its eyes. I'm wondering if that's his element showing up."

Volteer said, "Peculiar. A Black Star with the power of light."

"No," Spyro refuted. "It isn't true light, not in the context that we understand it."

Volteer shook his head and raised his upturned paw. "True light? Are we speaking metaphorically or literally?"

"I don't know," Spyro said. "But it's not natural. If we're going to figure it out we'll need Haedrig. He'll have a better idea of what to do."

Terrador sighed, his eyes down as he considered that. After a moment he gave a slight nod. "If there are anymore of these creatures that you speak then it'd be best that we accompany you."

Cyril approved. "You mean I'll actually get to freeze the bollocks off something?" He sighed at the prospect. "Oh I haven't done that in years. One good paw swipe and they shatter like a priceless antique. It's so entertaining."

Raziela turned her head up to Cyril, her ears perked. "Wait...freezing and shattering them?"

"Oh yes!" Cyril said as he began his walk forward. "Never gets old. Especially if there's lava nearby. Just freeze them into a ball and roll them down."

"Huh," Raziela said as he followed him. "That sounds fun!"

"Oh there's many things you can do with the element of ice. Makes for an excellent chilled beverage as well."

Goon and the rest of the dragons stared at the two. Spyro said, "Well...Guess that's our cue to leave." They followed after Cyril and Raziela. Spyro and Cynder moved the front, led the rest of the group along.

Goon sided next to Spyro and looked back at Raziela and Cyril. He muttered, "Well _they're_ hitting it off."

Spyro gave him an oblique glance. "You're talking to me."

"I am."

"Why are you talking to me?"

Goon shot back, "Why are you still talking to me?"

Cynder said to Goon, "You seem to forget that you killed Hunter's kinsmen."

Goon pursed his lips at her. "And you seem to forget that you were going to...Oh gee, I don't know..._Eat. Us._"

Spyro and Cynder considered that. After a moment Spyro asked Goon, "What would you have done?"

Goon bobbed his head in thought. "Paprika, bit of pepper, some salt..."


	12. Chapter 12

The presence within Avalar had rattled Haedrig, his fur raised against phantom whispers, or objectively, the musings of a mind exposed to the supernatural. He teetered between logic and superstition more and more, the connections between them murky at best.

His eyes glazed at the shelved flasks of oil, the necessary preservatives for his metalwork. He turned his head to the center wall, the shelved dragon bones arranged by type and size: the appendages separated from the ribs and spine, the skulls upon the top shelf.

Sparx flew to his side, turned from Haedrig to the display. "What are you thinking?"

Haedrig curled and uncurled his fingers. "Not sure if you could call it that." His vision jumped from skull to skull, turned back to the oils, turned to the shelves of the right wall, the mole's face aglow with its crystals: anomalies he had discovered in his past travels, their shapes oddly symmetrical. Crystals weren't usually bound by form. These, however, had grown a pattern, had replicated as fractals. "Wondering how I'm going to piece all this together."

Sparx observed the crystals and shrugged. "Hammer them into something. See what happens."

Haedrig huffed a laugh at him. "Hammer them into something? It's that simple, is it?"

"Oh yeah," Sparx said with feigned severity. "Should ask Spyro about that. Works wonders for him."

Haedrig grunted in amusement. "I might have to rekindle the forge then. See what comes of it."

A few knocks thudded from upstairs. Haedrig turned his head up, his hand at his revolver. He and Sparx ascended the stairwell, their gait swift towards the door. "Who is it?"

"Spyro," Spyro said from outside. Cynder stood next to him, the three guardians and ferals behind him.

Haedrig undid the door, a smile on his face as he greeted Spyro and Cynder. His expression shifted to shock as he took in the newcomers. "Huh. Well..." He sized up the guardians and his home. "I'd offer to let you in but...I don't think that's feasible."

Terrador chuckled. "It's fine. We're accompanying Spyro and Cynder and..." He barely hid his distaste. "The ferals."

Haedrig mouthed 'ferals.' Raziela and Goon wound around the guardians towards Haedrig. The mole caught sight of Raziela's weapon. His jaw dropped. "Shattersound..." He gaped up at her. "What are you doing with Shattersound?"

"Killing," Raziela chirped. Spyro and Cynder reared towards her, gave her an unspoken warning. Raziela added, "Discreetly."

Warily, Haedrig pressed information from her. "You're Malak's daughter?"

"Wait," Spyro said to Haedrig, "you know her?"

"Her father, yes," Haedrig replied, the female feral in his peripheral vision. "I needed another hand to gather the crystals. In exchange I offered to build him a weapon, one specifically designed as a resonator." He took in Raziela's features, noted the resemblances to her father: the white scales and red plating. "I never knew for who or what."

"Don't worry," Raziela assured, "it gets a lot of use." She hugged it to her chest. "Father loves me so."

Spyro, Cynder, and Haedrig shared a wary expression. "Huh," Spyro said. "I'm surprised he didn't drop your egg."

Raziela hissed at Spyro, who remained unfazed. He addressed Haedrig, his dwindling humor to somberness as he recollected the recent events. "We're here because we met The Black Star."

Haedrig listened with widened eyes. "I see. He was the cause of that squall?"

"That and more. The power we witnessed..." Spyro couldn't readily word the magnitude. "We'll have to discuss this inside." Him and Cynder approached the door. Spyro stopped at the entrance and turned to Malefor. "You too."

"Me?" Malefor said, his lip curled. "Why? So the rodent can put a gun to my head?"

Spyro ignored the sarcasm. "Because I said I needed your help. I don't think I need to elaborate as to why."

Malefor had a retort on the tip of his tongue until he noticed The Guardians' curious stares. With reluctant deference he said, "I see."

Spyro took a moment to ensure Malefor's obsequence. He said to Terrador, "We need to discuss some things with Haedrig. We'll try not to keep you. In the meantime you can..." His eyes shifted to the ferals, who slouched with overt displeasure. "Get to know the help."

Cyril harrumphed. "Well, I suppose I can further enlighten our feral friends to the finer points ice-wielding."

Goon muttered, "Enlighten you to a finer point."

Cyril whipped his head towards Goon. "What was that?"

Goon took Double or Nothing off his shoulders and waggled it in front of Cyril's face. "Sha, sha, sha."

Cynder quietly asked Spyro, "You sure that's a good idea?"

Spyro shrugged. "Three on two. I'd say it's a good idea."

Cynder mouthed, "Ah," before she, Spyro, Malefor, and Haedrig entered the home.

Sparx waited inside the main room with crossed arms. He held up a reprimanding finger, his mouth open to rant until he noticed Malefor. He clacked his mouth closed. "Ah. So you brought it with you."

Malefor nearly retorted until Spyro reared towards him. He rumbled, "Not a word to him. Not a step. Understood?" Malefor cringed, his muzzle creased with suppressed anger. Spyro's voice softened as he turned to Sparx. "I'm sorry to do this to you, but we're short on time."

Sparx briefly eyed Malefor before he turned to Spyro. "Why's that?"

"Because we met The Black Star."

"And?"

"We have ten days until everything is lost."

The words left an unease in the air. Sparx said weakly, "Huh. Good fun there."

Spyro's muzzle slackened into a frown. "It's not like Malefor, Sparx. No purifying fire."

Sparx slanted his head. "What do you mean?"

Spyro exhaled deeply, his eyes half-closed. "Rot. Life on the brink of death for who knows how long."

Sparx grimaced at the description. "The Black Star's not big on hygiene, is he?"

A sad chuckle came from Spyro. "I guess that's one way of wording it." He turned to Haedrig, who listened with slowly wringing palms. "I think there's something to be gained from this though."

"What is it?" Haedrig asked.

"An element, the likes we've never seen before."

Haedrig squinted his eyes. "What kind of element?"

"Light, but not in the way we understand it. Just as Cynder's darkness can inflict physical damage, as opposed to just the regular absence of light, The Black Star's light...It's false."

"False?"

Spyro sat on his haunches, his head downcast in cogitation. "It's easy for us to associate darkness with something negative. Our minds make nightmares from nothing. That essence is behind the darkness that Cynder uses." He looked to Cynder for affirmation.

Cynder nodded in return. "I think what Spyro's getting at is that The Black Star doesn't adhere to what we commonly perceive with light: life, things illuminated, understood. His power has those attributes, but it's twisted, gray in what it can do."

"You say gray," Haedrig said curiously. "How so?"

"The life part," Cynder said. "He murdered two cheetahmen and resurrected them, but it wasn't true life. This element he uses acts like puppet strings, but...from the inside. It's strange. Yet that mimicry doesn't belong to the body. It belongs to him."

"An animator," Haedrig ventured.

"In a way," Cynder replied. "Not only that, but he could create life and wither it, cycle between the two."

Haedrig, increasingly disturbed, asked, "And the other cataclysm? The quake?"

"Him," Cynder said. "An ulcer in Avalar, he called it."

Haedrig's fur bristled. He squeezed his palms. "And where was Malefor in all this?"

"Detained," Cynder replied as she looked over at the dark dragon.

Haedrig peered at the collar around Malefor's neck. "I see." He bit back his animosity and asked him, "Is there anything you can offer to this?"

Malefor glared down at the mole. "You want my knowledge now? When hours ago you had a revolver at my head?"

"We have worse problems to deal with. I'm trying to be accommodating to the dragon that nearly killed us. You mind being considerate of that?"

Malefor took that with a light nod, his lips thin. "Alright." He sat down and inhaled through his nose, and with a sigh he said, "You want to know what I think?"

"No need to be sardonic."

Malefor grunted. "No worry. As you said: 'worse things to deal with'." He turned his head to Spyro and then Cynder, gathered their attention. "I don't know anymore than you do about The Black Star's element. I do, however, know something you don't about the black crystals."

Haedrig anxiously asked, "What about them?"

"They're not a one-way conduit."

Haedrig gaped, and a grin spread across his muzzle. "Yes, yes! I knew it! I knew there was more to them!"

Malefor didn't share Haedrig's enthusiasm. "Suppose you did. But not as much as I know."

Haedrig's excitement shifted to agitation. He snarled, "Then stop stalling and spill it you―"

Malefor waved a finger at him. "Courtesy." He savored the mole's indignation. "If you will." Another pause. "As I was saying, the crystals don't just absorb magic, or rather, the raw energy that is defined into an element. It can be extracted."

"How?"

Malefor smirked. "With a finer conduit. The black crystals are in a way like eggs: porous, but a small enough hole will leave them intact.

"But how?" Haedrig said with rising frustration. "Magic's fickle as it is! How do you create something to absorb it?"

Malefor replied with a softer, patronizing tone. "Simple, in its own way. It takes raw energy to destroy something. It takes a greater amount to create nothing."

Haedrig mulled over those words. "Nothing. Like a vacuum?"

"Yes."

The mole pondered that further, his hand beneath his chin. "And this vacuum? You self-contain it?"

"Yes."

"In what?"

Malefor gave him a muffled chuckle. "Therein lies the beauty." The dragon's smugness shifted to revery. He sat on his haunches, his prehensile paws shaped over an imaginary globe. "When one creates a void and returns life to it, a great energy is released." He expanded the globe. "But that void is quickly filled. One must be strong enough to take hold of the released energy, shape it quickly." He cupped his paws together. "Until all but a little nothing is left, contained within the defined energy."

Haedrig growled and tossed his arms to the side. "Defined! In what?"

Malefor's grin returned, his eyes thin as he spread his arms. "Will."

Haedrig stared incredulously. "Will?"

Malefor stood back on his fours. "Hard of hearing?"

"How do you solidify will itself?"

"You don't. Will actualizes desire. Others have the mind and body, the surrounding world. Dragons tap deeper."

Haedrig crossed his arms, his head canted to the side. "Will..." He turned to Spyro. "Can you make sense of what this lizard's saying?"

Spyro's eyelids tensed as he tried to find the correlations. "Will is a big factor. He's right on that. But there's also a..." He breathed out as he sought the words. "A propensity towards something. It's like with you, Haedrig. Moles have the mind for smithing. Same with you, but you applied that mind to something else. With dragons, most dragons, it's usually only one element, something that your mind works more efficiently at, and when those thoughts work together you harness that energy more effectively. In this case dragons have an entirely different source to tap into. With purple dragons, black dragons, what have you, that propensity is broader. The drawback to that, of course, is that we have a higher ceiling. It's easier to master one element than four or more."

Sparx snorted. "Okay, Ignitus."

Spyro raised an eyebrow at him. "Nice burn, lantern." He turned back to Haedrig. "To sum it up: multiple elements allow us to find the..." He stumbled upon the words, his mouth slack.

"What is it?" Haedrig asked Spyro.

Spyro's voice came out hushed. "Nuances between."

Cynder grimaced. "When you say it like that it makes me wonder what would have happened if we..." She turned her head from the thought.

Haedrig asked, "If you had what?"

Spyro didn't want to answer. He forced himself to, told Haedrig of their fight with the ferals, of The Black Star's offer. Haedrig listened with grace, barely nodded. He said with some heaviness, "I see. It must have pained you to deny that."

Spyro's throat tightened. "Yeah. Yeah it did."

"I don't think any less of you," Haedrig offered. "Grays. Nuances between. Who's to say he wasn't trying to push you to the darker end. Especially with the power you both wield." He regathered his prior thoughts and turned to Malefor. "So, with the knowledge you had gained you formed a strong enough substance to contain a void. Now, how did you extract it?"

"Carefully," Malefor replied. With a quick breath he added, "With a vessel that could contain such a power. The golem I created was more than adequate to distribute that energy. As for the crystal, a small hole, very minute, could be bored into it, the void's path to life bottle-necked. If you decided to lash out at it," he tilted his head towards Spyro and Cynder, "like these two imbeciles, enough force would release the energy. Violently. Quickly dissipate it."

Haedrig crossed an arm, his other hand to his chin. Smugness gradually came over him. "Suppose I were to tell you that this has already been done?"

Malefor craned his head down at the mole. "What do you mean?"

"I mean you just affirmed my theories, albeit with greater detail. I suppose I can't deny you that small victory."

Scorn spread across Malefor's face. "And how might I ask were you able to do this?"

Haedrig slanted his head up at Malefor, a knowing, wry grin on his face. "Will actualizes desire."

"Oh come off it!"

Spyro stepped between the two. He lent Malefor a warning glance, though the dark dragon barely registered it. Spyro asked Haedrig, "You had the tools to create this hole?"

Haedrig nodded. "Consider Malefor's golem. I doubt Malefor took the time to craft every individual crystal. Once he discovered the technique he used his magic to perpetuate it, or, had the apes do it for him." With a slightly patronizing tone he asked Malefor, "Sounds about right, doesn't it?"

Malefor's smile didn't touch his eyes. "Yes. Quite astute for walking food." Cynder's tail whipped out and smacked him across the head. The dragon strangled back a curse.

Haedrig continued. "And while magic is wielded by few, it must still abide by the rules of the surrounding world. Fortunately for us moles, we needn't worry about the draining quality of the black crystals. That allowed me to experiment, see what could penetrate the substance."

Spyro thought deeper on that. "Sounds risky. How did you differentiate between one holding magic and an empty one? It could have exploded on you."

"Simple," Haedrig said. "The tune. I rung the green crystals to see if they would resonate with the black ones. Ultimately I had to start testing the...loaded ones, if you will, only ones that resonated a little."

"And what did you use to make the hole?"

Haedrig gave him a small shrug. "A drill."

Malefor roared, "_What?_"

"Hard of hearing?"

Malefor collected himself. "What kind of drill?"

"The metal kind."

Dubious, Malefor pursed his lips. "Fine. Suppose I believe that you found a way to use my constructs. Do you have proof?"

Haedrig glanced at Spyro and Cynder. "Thought you'd never ask." He beckoned the dragons as he made his way towards the stairwell. The dragons followed, their heads low as they descended down into the basement.

Malefor shook off the initial chill. "Like a damn catacomb in here."

The admittance surprised Spyro. "I didn't think I'd hear that from you."

Malefor gave him a wan laugh. "And I didn't think you'd forget my afflictions so easily."

Spyro stopped at that, his lips parted as the imagery of Malefor's resurrection came back to him, the bloodied rasping of bone on scale, the former destroyer's misery upon the loss of his wings.

Spyro looked down at the floor, at the blackened streak where Cynder had spat at Malefor. "I'm sorry."

Everyone stilled at that. Malefor blinked in confusion. "What?"

"I can't imagine that kind of pain, that weight. To enter the world in agony, stripped of everything you've earned and more."

Malefor's mouth worked in silence. He averted his eyes to one of the dragon skulls in the alcove next to him. The black crystals in its sockets shimmered. "Why are you apologizing to me?"

"Because my remark was callous," Spyro said. "Cruelty shouldn't beget cruelty."

Malefor stared a bit longer at the sockets, his mouth slightly open. He turned to Spyro, head at an angle, eyes thin with distrust. "Is this your attempt at changing me? Winning me over?"

"No," Spyro said in earnest. "You've suffered too much already. We need your help, Malefor. Hurting you isn't the way to do it. You've had enough of that with your elders. I don't want you to experience that anymore with us."

Cynder held her head down. Spyro noticed the gesture. He addressed both her and Malefor. "I told Cynder this too: whatever happened between you two, it pales with what we're fighting now. I'm not asking you to forget, but right now I need you to forgive. But that's not an invitation for belligerence. This works both ways, Malefor. We need your cooperation. Forget what everyone expects you to be. No one is forcing you to become what you were."

Malefor brooded on that. "Limitation breeds invention." A crooked smile formed on his muzzle. "I have more than plenty of the former."

"That will change," Spyro assured. With further thought he said, "And thank you for your insight."

"For what?"

"Your knowledge of The Black Star, the crystals." He added with a smirk, "You're helping save Avalar, Malefor. Imagine that." The notion struck Malefor, left him speechless, numb.

Sparx caught the disbelief on Malefor's face. "Uh oh. It's spreading."

Spyro raised an eyebrow at Sparx. "What's spreading?"

Sparx said severely, "The Ignitus. Pretty soon Malefor will start getting preachy. We'll kill The Black Star through sheer boredom."

Spyro blinked up at the hovering dragonfly. "You're an ass, Sparx."


	13. Chapter 13

Haedrig cleared his throat, caught the attention of the room. Sparx smacked his tongue, and his neck creaked as he revolved his head towards the mole. "That's _my_ interruption sound."

"Maybe so," Haedrig said. "But I'd like to show you all what I was talking about."

Sparx gave Spyro a deep half-frown. "You win this time. Fatty."

Cynder remarked, "I contest that."

"You would!"

Sparx's irritation amused Cynder She remarked, "Have you poked his belly lately? Could break a tree over it."

"DON'T TELL ME THESE THINGS!"

Malefor, for one, shared Sparx's irateness. "Anyone else want to comment on Spyro's physique? Hm?" He directed his derision at Cynder. "Maybe I should have a say? After all, he's matured _so much._" The thought of that silenced everyone. The dark dragon muttered, "That's what I thought." He turned to Haedrig and held his paw out. "Continue."

Leerily, Haedrig led the dragons and dragonfly to the far end of the room, where it branched into three separate chambers. He chose the left one, the corners of the chamber alight with hanging, stained-glass lanterns of ocher, azure, and emerald. A tapered, bronzy pipe bloomed from the ceiling, its scalloped contour aglow beneath the lanterns' light. Within the pipe's open mouth was a firepot jaw atop a chin of piled stones. From the crook of the forge's lip was a bellow, its burgundy wood stained with scorches.

To the left of the forge were wrought iron wall hooks that hung blackened tongs, chisels, and hammers, the tools' varying heft and shape to lend malleability to the smithing process. Before the forge upon a raised, hammertone base shone an ebony anvil, its horn slightly curved, its face smooth, nearly flawless with the exception of two holes: one square, one round.

Closer to them at the left wall stood a wooden work bench, where several hand drills were neatly laid out, the drill bits upright within a stand of grained steel. Below the bench's table were cubby-holed crystals sorted by color, the black crystals further from the reds and greens.

Haedrig's interest drifted to right wall of the chamber's forefront. Three long, layered gauntlets of matte black metal and leather hung from projecting prongs. The tips of the gauntlets bore serrated claws, the metal punched with holes to prevent suction during retraction.

Haedrig beckoned the dragons and dragonfly closer. At a few paces distance he spread his hand: a sign to stop. "Can you sense it?"

The dragons looked to each other, silently asked in bemusement. After a moment they shook their heads. The reaction pleased Haedrig, his palms together. "Look closer, then."

Another silent exchange amongst the three. They stepped forward, uncaring of their close proximity with each other. At a head's distance from the gauntlets they reeled back, cringed. "They're shimmering," Spyro said. "You put black crystals in them?"

"I did," Haedrig admitted. "But recall that they can both take and give magic."

Malefor turned to the mole, his air condescending. "I never said they could give magic. I said they could act as a two-way conduit."

As if validated, Haedrig replied, "Exactly. Which in turn means they can be used as such."

Malefor shifted his dubious stare from the mole to the gauntlets. "Alright, mole. I'm curious."

Haedrig decided that as good a compliment as any. "First, a volunteer."

Malefor looked behind at Spyro. "Suppose you can break it over your belly if he's wrong."

Spyro thinned his lips at Malefor. "I'll let that go for now." He approached one of the gauntlets and took it off the wall's prong. Careful of the claws, he sat on his haunches and slipped his prehensile paw into the gauntlet, expected the fatiguing pull of the black crystals. He frowned, confounded as he tightened the leather straps of the gauntlet around his forearm. The talons rose and fell as he curled and splayed his paw. His voice came out hushed. "I'm stumped, Haedrig. What did you do?"

"That," Haedrig said as he pointed at the gauntlet, "was one of the answers that hid in plain sight. It was the green crystals, you see."

Spyro extended his fingers, admired the many layers of metal that conformed around his paw. He said distantly, "Green crystals?"

"They're similar to black crystals, but few would see the similarities. Both can hold raw energy, and both are a solidified form of it. The difference is that the black crystals are artificial. The substance around the black crystals is 'used' energy, in a sense, the energy taken and manipulated when one creates a void. The green crystals _are_ that raw energy solidified, formed very much like natural crystals in that regard."

Malefor shook his head at that. "So you're saying there are green crystals within the gauntlets."

"I am."

"Then what's to prevent the black crystals from draining them?"

Haedrig could barely contain his glee. "You mean you don't know?"

Malefor staunched his rising anger. His tone settled into something between intrigue and grit-teeth tolerance. "Yes. I suppose I don't. And I'm being on particularly good _behavior_ considering the know-it-all little shit in front of me— wouldn't you agree, Spyro?" He aimed a manic grin at the purple dragon.

Spyro gave him a raised eyebrow. He curled the gauntlet again. "Go on."

Spyro's tone and gesture unsettled Malefor. "Well," the dark dragon asked Haedrig, "how did you do it?"

"A buffer," Haedrig said. "I bottle-necked the magic from one end of the black crystal through solid metal, the gauntlet's knuckle duster, to act as the green crystal's shield. The green crystal itself is small, very young. It's more absorbent of raw energy, but it can only absorb so much. But if there's a dragon behind that green crystal..." He let Malefor figure the rest out.

The dark dragon raised his eyebrows. "You crafted a leeching gauntlet." Haedrig excitedly nodded. Malefor smirked, reveled the idea. "Against a magic-wielder your energy is boundless."

"To an extent," Haedrig said. "The claws are key. Being near said opponent isn't enough. The claws of the gauntlets have a minute amount of black crystal in them, so don't get careless. It took some experimenting to figure out just the amount, otherwise the gauntlet itself would drain its wielder."

Malefor's eyes crinkled with a genuine smile. "It's a good thing I didn't know you before my..._intervention._ Wondrous things we could have done." The comment wiped the haughtiness from Haedrig's face. Malefor said quickly to Spyro, "But we're past that now."

Spyro continued to stare at the gauntlet. After a moment he unstrapped it from his paw. "Suppose we are," he said to Malefor. He hung the gauntlet back up, his brow creased. "Haedrig."

"Yes?"

A delayed question. "Can we use these?"

Haedrig looked nervously about. "Well, you and Cynder of course can, but I'll leave the third gauntlet to your all's discretion."

Malefor released a quiet laugh. "Don't worry, Haedrig." He tapped his claw against his collar. "I'm just a pet for now."

Spyro and Cynder ignored Malefor's spite. Despite the dark dragon's fail-safe, Spyro and Cynder were still left with the decision of the third gauntlet's wielder.

Sparx raised his hand. "I want one!"

Spyro rolled his eyes. "It's bigger than you."

"It would make a great conversation piece." No one laughed at that. Sparx's antennae lowered. "Fine then. Serious thought: give it to one of the guardians."

Spyro and Cynder considered that. Cynder admitted, "Well, they would make good use of it, and I damn sure don't want spider-lizard and porcupine-bitch to get a hold of it."

Spyro nodded in agreement. "Now if we could just avoid Cyril and Volteer arguing over an hour for it..." A series of sharp knocks snatched their attention. Spyro sighed. "Tell me they're not killing each other already." Haedrig, with his head tilted to the upstairs, beckoned the dragons and dragonfly along. They followed closely, out of the basement and up the stairwell.

Spyro asked Haedrig, "You want me to answer that?"

Haedrig bobbed his head in consideration. "Might be better if something is amiss." They reached the kitchen, where Haedrig allowed Spyro to move ahead of him. The purple dragon strode towards the door, half-expected to see the guardians in an argument with the ferals. He put his paw around the door's handle and opened it.

A sinuous crimson dragon stood before him, eyes like smoldering embers, his horns, fins, and plating as bright as a blaze. They locked sight with each other. Neither of them breathed.

Flame's rasped tenor pervaded the room. "Spyro..." He studied the purple dragon, his awe tempered by purpose. "I have some questions for you."

Spyro tried to lighten the meeting's staidness. "A name would have been nice, but go on."

Flame raised his paw, slowly directed it at Malefor. "What. Are you doing. With _him?_"


	14. Chapter 14

Spyro glanced back at Malefor, the dark dragon defensive, eyes thin with bewilderment. He then looked to Haedrig, the mole mortified.

Haedrig rushed forward and put himself between the two. "No arguing! Please." Flustered, he collected himself and gently ushered Spyro, Cynder, and Sparx outside, who met the guardians' bemused looks with their own.

Haedrig put himself in front of Malefor, held his hands out in front of Flame as he escorted the dark dragon out. The mole pleaded to Flame, "Just wait, please!"

Flame tracked Malefor with a slow turn of his head. Haedrig said to Malefor, "Not a word! Not a bloody word!" The mole gave himself a deep breath once everyone was outside. "My mind has been racked with trying to keep up with everything. I'm sorry for this confusion."

Ember stood next to Flame. She brushed her paw across her mate's shoulder before she sided next to Haedrig. "Need some help?"

"No, thank you, dear." Haedrig wiped his hand down his chin, eased his breathing. "Spyro." He directed his hand towards Flame, who still glowered at Malefor. "I've known them for some time, helped them. I was going to tell you, but as I said, things have been moving too quickly."

Spyro gave the mole a slight nod before he turned his head to Flame. "Good to meet you. Hopefully the feeling's mutual?"

Flame wrenched his sight from Malefor to Spyro. "I'd like to think so. But you didn't answer my question."

Spyro blinked. "Didn't Haedrig tell you?"

"I want your version."

Spyro blew out a slow breath. "Flame...There's no real easy way of saying this, but..." He caught his tongue, referred to Malefor in the third-person. "He's not the main threat here. I know he's done evil in the past, but the mind behind the deeds isn't the same."

The guardians listened intently, eyes narrowed. Goon and Raziela stood with their hips canted and weapons shouldered, their grins expectant.

Flame uttered quietly, "Behind the deeds." His eyes shifted briefly to Malefor. "Why the collar?"

"To bind his power."

"I thought he's changed."

"He has."

"Then why is he in the collar?"

Spyro bit back his rising agitation. "Cynder and I have our own reservations, but we're giving him a chance. I think if we can then you can too."

Ember bit her lip and looked away. Spyro had hit Flame's sore spot.

The crimson dragon mouthed, "Us too." Ponderously, he ambled towards Spyro, his head canted. "So...Same stake, is it?"

"Of course not," Spyro said as he held his ground. "But there are factors to consider."

"Like?" Flame stopped a few paces from Spyro, his voice stoic, volatile. "Tell me."

"The Black Star, for one."

"Our main concern, yes. No need to complicate things."

Spyro's eyelids tensed. "What do you mean?"

Again, Flame pointed at Malefor. "He's a risk."

Spyro inhaled through his nostrils. "Alright then. And how is coming here and starting trouble a contribution?"

Flame's muzzle creased. "_Starting trouble?_ You resurrect the dark master and you accuse me of that?"

Terrador bellowed, "_What?_" Cyril and Volteer whipped their heads towards Malefor, who slouched beneath their gaze. Terrador asked Spyro, "Why did you hide his identity?"

Spyro sucked his teeth and pivoted towards Terrador. "For the reasons I just said! I don't know how else to say it!"

Goon gave a patronizing, "Ooooooooooo!"

"Shut up!" Spyro snarled.

Goon stuck out his lower lip. He whispered to Raziela, "Someone's in trooouuuble."

Raziela's ears perked up. "Who are you betting on?"

"The red one. I think we _click._"

"I'm betting on the pink one."

Goon canted his head at Ember. "Her? She hasn't said anything. She's just watching and worrying. You know. Being a _girl._"

Raziela's ears lowered. "Well guess what."

"What?"

She reared her arm back and smacked Goon's flank. "_I'm the boy now._"

Goon, terrified, tensed up and gawked at the female feral. "You're a freak."

Raziela's ears perked back up. She narrowed her eyes and put her muzzle in front of Goon's. "_Mah-ah-ah._"

"I'm going to get you back."

Raziela cocked an eyebrow, her opposite ear flat. "Huh?"

Goon leaned his head in. "_Mah. Ah. Ah. Ah._"

Flame barely acknowledged the ferals. He canted his head to other side, his voice husky as his anger simmered. He said to Spyro, "Do you know who the Aphos are?"

Spyro jogged his memory. "Zealots of Malefor. They willingly took the crystals into themselves."

"Right," Flame said, his voice lower. "Do you know what else I learned from the Aphos?"

"What was it?"

"I learned about Gaul, Spyro. I learned about how you defeated him."

Spyro's jaws tightened. "How?"

"I have ways of getting answers. I've learned _much._"

Spyro's chest rose with a heavy breath. "You know about the dark element then."

"I do. And that concerns me. Because that means that _that...,_" he jabbed a paw at Malefor, "_bastard's_ power creeped into you. Now I don't know how strong his influence is, but resurrecting him doesn't exactly put me at ease."

"You're bending this."

Flame's extended arm kindled with a slow blaze, his paw splayed at Malefor. "Am I? Am I really?"

Ember's voice snagged in her throat. She wanted to be by her mate, support him, but his anger had a foothold. She rushed to Cynder, her face stricken. "We didn't come here for this. Seeing Malefor must have set him off."

Cynder didn't hold any misgivings against her. "I can understand, but I don't think Spyro's going to let Malefor come to harm."

"And if he does?"

Cynder's head alternated between Spyro and Flame. "We'll have to leash our mates."

Malefor, meanwhile, stood his ground against the element aimed at his face. He inwardly cursed the collar around his neck, wished bitterly for his power. Spyro stood poised, ready to intercept if Flame unleashed his fire. Something tugged at Malefor, something foreign as Spyro's voice went through his mind, a voice strong but weary, sourced from compassion. He swallowed and found his own voice. "Flame..." A dome of sweltering heat burst from Flame, and a spiraling, thin ribbon of fire burned through Malefor's shoulder, hurled him onto his back.

Spyro batted Flame's arm away. "_What are you doing?_"

Another surge of power, of searing heat. Spyro recoiled, narrowly evaded Flame's enveloping fire.

The ground blackened beneath Flame. His crimson scales darkened, the overlaps incandescent: burning diamonds with black centers. He spread his wings, and a burst of embers and ash erupted with a rush of blistering air, the dragon's plating and horns as pulsing, hot coals.

Only the eyes remained the same. He narrowed them at Spyro and hunched. His tail swayed, created a fan of fire. His voice crackled and rumbled like great tinder before an immolation. "_Earn my trust. Let me end him._"

Spyro didn't budge. "No."

Flame lunged and sank his talons into Spyro's shoulders, the perforations cauterized before the heat of his claws. With vicious strength he flung Spyro away from the home and gave chase, the red dragon's body a streaked inferno.

Spyro rolled to his fours, summoned his ice element. A frozen wall rose between him and Flame, hissed with cold.

Flame melted through it, a roaring bulb of fire in his attacking paw. Gnarled, thick roots sprung from the ground and ensnared his arm. He yanked his limb free from the burning roots only to glimpse a hovering sphere of electricity before him. A crackling explosion ensued, rocked him off his fours and hurled him.

Spyro pursued. Flame regained his balance and spread his wings. Coils of white fire spiraled around him. They untethered from the dragon and hissed towards Spyro. Spyro switched directions, kicked up soil as he leaped atop a summoned pillar of soil. He bounded to another risen pillar. A series of them formed as he evaded the homing flames, which deadened as they lost their heat through the organic barriers.

He dove off the final pillar towards Flame. Spyro brought his paws together, and a massive spear of ice protracted, cut the air with a shriek.

Flame's wings beat the air, sent a heat-wave towards the spear. The ice melted within a great cloud of vapor. Spyro spread his wings and barreled from the mist, dodged a follow-up column of fire.

Flame met him quickly, threw blazing swipes. Spyro dropped height, countered with an upper swipe to his jaw that connected with a dull crack. Spyro winced against Flame's heat, distanced himself with a parting bolt of lightning to the red dragon's chest. Spyro took advantage of the stunned dragon, breathed a hailstorm that battered Flame, smothered his calidity.

Spyro combined elements. Another pillar erupted from the ground, this one swathed in fire, the heat as a hearth against the soil, solidified it into a giant obsidian spear. With a directing swipe he sent the spear at Flame, who caught its tip between his paws. The force of it cratered him to the ground.

Spyro descended quickly, his pattering fours across the grass towards Flame's landing. He regretted the attack, hadn't wanted to push it that far. The obsidian projected from the soil like an edifice, glimmered in the scarce light through the clouds.

He halted when the obsidian spear coursed with brilliant orange streaks, melted in waxy runoffs of glowing reds and oranges. Flame's paw emerged at the lip of the crater. He pulled himself up, his breathing slightly labored.

Spyro called to him. "I don't want to continue this, Flame! Listen to reason!"

Flame cocked his head. "_Reason or excuse?_" A blinding flare erupted from him. His voice seared the air as he approached the purple dragon. "_Your reason's weak, the latter unacceptable._" His footfalls left smoldering fissures that webbed outwards. "_Let me kill him, and you'll have my loyalty._"

"I'm not sacrificing anyone, Flame! Not when there's hope."

The fire of Flame's wings spread, became ember curtains draped in soot. "Hope is barbed, Spyro. You of all dragons should know that."

A presence came from behind Spyro, a different heat, one that teetered between warmth and conflagration, a candle or a wildfire. He backpedaled as a veil of rose fire blocked him from Flame, its color of blushed whites and bruised reds. He turned around, his rear path clear of the strange fire.

Cynder and Ember approached him, the fuchsia dragoness alight with her element, her scarf burned from her neck, the rubicund gem within her chest relucent. Ember's words came out sweet despite her imposing presence. "Let me speak with him, please."

Spyro turned his head to Ember's fiery veil, the crimson dragon behind it at a loss, voice muffled before the low roar of the dragoness' power. Spyro nodded to Ember. "Alright." He joined Cynder's side, left Ember to deal with her mate.

Ember waited till they were out of earshot. With graceful steps she crossed through the veil and stood before Flame, the red dragon still rattled from battle. He said anxiously, "Why did you stop us?" She didn't answer. She drew the answer from him, an act that flustered him. "Didn't you hear that? Am I really in the wrong here? This is Malefor we're talking about!"

"Flame...," she said with a light persistence.

"He'd rather fight me than kill off that bastard!"

"Flame."

The red dragon let out a defeated sigh. "Please tell me you're with me on this."

"You burned your necklace."

The remark struck Flame. His fours faltered, and the searing fire around him dwindled, receded into his normal scale pattern. The ash settled around him, the licks of fire gone. "I did?" He looked down at his chest, his paw to where the necklace previously hung.

Ember nodded. Her veil of fire fell, left a fine ribbon of ash upon the grass. "I know why you're upset." Flame remained silent, his shoulders bunched and head stooped. Ember's voice softened. She lowered her head to his. A little smile sprung to the corner of her mouth. "Maybe I could help clear things up?"

Flame gave her a slight nod, his face slack with shame. She softly beckoned him to her side before they walked back to Spyro and Cynder. Ember's gem still shone, caught the curiosity of the two dragons in front of her. Ember said to the pair, "I think I can help explain some things."

Spyro and Cynder couldn't help but glance at Ember's gem. Cynder asked her, "How did that happen?"

Ember's eyes strayed to the side, her mind's eye reluctant to relive the experience. "The Aphos, as Flame said. They're responsible for this."

Spyro cringed. "But why? Why you?"

Ember gave a weak shrug. "Who knows? Perhaps to test the black crystals, see if they could force Malefor's influence on a dragon, make it their vessel, golem. Maybe they shared Malefor's hatred of dragons at the time."

It donned on Spyro. He said to Flame, "You blame Malefor for what happened to your mate."

Flame closed his eyes and nodded. "Yes."

Cynder mulled over that. "And the alleged savior and former minion bring him back. No wonder you were furious."

An inner guard dropped within Flame. His composure loosened, voice rough and low with weariness. "Couldn't have said it better."

Spyro returned the reparation. "Would you two still be willing to join us? I know you have your doubts about Malefor, but we wouldn't have brought him back if the risk was too great."

Flame glanced over at the dark dragon, who limped closer to the ferals, away from the guardians' accusatory glares. "What's he like?"

Spyro gave Flame a light laugh. "Why don't you ask him?"

Flame glanced again at Malefor. The dark dragon sat on his haunches, head downcast, his paw over the cauterized hole in his shoulder. Flame walked over to him, uncaring of the stares he received. Ember joined him shortly after.

Malefor took a few steps back, his frown crooked, teeth bared in fear, pain. Flame summoned his thoughts the best he could. "You called my name."

Malefor dry-swallowed. "Suppose I did."

"Why?"

Malefor huffed. "Well, I was trying to be civil until you burned a goddamn hole through my shoulder."

Flame gave him a quiet, "Oh." A pause. "Sorry about that."

A wavering, agitated groan came from Malefor. He peered up at the guardians, who still stared down at him, albeit with kinder eyes. It did nothing to assuage the dark dragon. "What? Are you going to make my other shoulder match?"

The guardians passed inquisitive looks to each other. Terrador craned his head down towards Malefor. "You are The Dark Master?"

"_Former_," Malefor said irritably, "Dark Master. I'm not one for titles at the moment, seeing as breathing's becoming a commodity nowadays."

The outburst surprised the guardians. Terrador said to Spyro, "I still don't understand why you hid the truth."

Spyro extended his paw towards Flame and Malefor. "For the same reasons you just saw. I wanted to give Malefor a chance to be something other than what everyone perceives."

Cyril grunted. "I knew 'Mitch' was a stupid name."

Malefor muttered, "You and I both."

Flame regained his rein on the conversation. "Look, I know I acted rashly. I think my reasons were valid, but that didn't mean I had to shut out other reason." He shifted on his fours as he rested his vision on Malefor. "Truth be told I doubt I'll trust you for awhile, if ever. But at the same time you don't seem to be who I think you are, were. I can at least give you the chance to prove me wrong."

A small sigh came from Malefor as he released his paw from his shoulder. "Doesn't fill the hole in my arm, but fair enough."

Ember gave it a once-over, her tone just as impassive as Flame's. "Have Haedrig put one of the crystals on it. It should heal quickly." She turned to her mate and tilted her head towards Spyro and Cynder. With that gesture the two left Malefor between the ferals and the guardians.

Malefor's lip curled. He turned his head to the ferals. "You've been quiet."

Raziela perked her ears up and nodded at him. "Mm hm."

"Why?"

"Mah-ah-ah."

Malefor grumbled and returned his sight to the ground. A finger pressed against his tricep.

Goon hissed and said, "_Burned._"


	15. Chapter 15

Malefor ignored Goon's poke, much to Goon's disappointment. The red feral slouched. "Someone's a moody-butt."

Malefor's distaste intensified. He looked over his shoulder at Goon. "Near-death experiences do that." With his paw against his burn he limped towards the home. He stopped, surprised to see Haedrig leave the house with a red crystal in his hand. The mole walked towards him and held it out.

Malefor looked down at it. "Thought you would make me walk."

Haedrig gave him a wry shrug. "Only a little."

Annoyed yet amused, Malefor took the crystal from Haedrig's hand and placed it on his shoulder. Within seconds a wave of heat and cold numbed the burn. After a moment he removed the crystal, a smooth round scar where the hole used to be. He handed it back to Haedrig. "So," Malefor said, his words to everyone, "how is this going to work?"

Spyro asked him, "What are you referring to?"

"Our time is constrained. We have ten days, and three of us are wingless." He said to Haedrig, "Not counting you. No offense, of course. You're no good as food."

Haedrig grunted in return. "Flattering. Thanks."

Malefor turned around and addressed the dragons. "Since _I think_ we're done trying to kill each other, maybe we can cooperate?"

Spyro approved with a nod. "Sounds good, but first we need to decide on the gauntlet's third wielder."

Cyril stepped forward, head tilted in curiosity. "What's this about a gauntlet?"

"A weapon Haedrig crafted that can absorb magic."

Cyril winced in thought. "The raw energy or element?"

Spyro hadn't thought of that. He turned to Haedrig for an answer, the mole himself unsure. "Well," Haedrig said, "they've never been tested. If I were to venture a guess I'd say just the raw energy."

Spyro's brow creased. "The gauntlets are a huge help, but it's not the same as..." His eyes gradually widened. Slowly, he turned his head to Goon.

Goon stood behind Raziela, his arm in mid-swing towards her flank. He caught himself just as Spyro said, "Goon!"

Raziela darted her head towards him. She cast a suspicious glare. "What were you doing?"

Goon had his arms behind his back. "Answering his question. Nosy."

Spyro said, "I haven't asked anything yet."

"Answer's 'no.'"

"But I didn't ask!"

"Then yes."

Spyro blinked at him. "Well, that's very kind of you to offer up your weapon."

"You're more than..." It donned on Goon. "Not...welcome?"

"We need it to absorb The Black Star's essence."

The power piqued Haedrig's curiosity. "It can do what?"

"Something," Goon said as his forearms dangled off Double or Nothing, "that you can't. But better."

Haedrig dry-washed his palms. "I've never heard of such a thing. Could I perhaps..."

"No."

The refusal disappointed Haedrig. He held his head down only to look pleadingly up at Spyro. The purple dragon caught the silent request. He said to Goon, "I'm guessing that's a personal weapon?"

"And that's a prying question," Goon retorted. "But I'm very glad you care."

Spyro approached the question from a different angle. "Well, if we can't have it then we're going to need your help."

"But I'm very glad you care."

"You just said that."

"It got through the first time? Good. Now I know you're just stubborn."

"And before?"

"Stupid."

Spyro sighed. The ferals proved more difficult to coax than Malefor. "You know, helping us was your idea."

"Sort of," Goon said. "Would have been an immediate 'yes' had you not tried to eat us. But I won't hold a _grudge._"

Raziela rolled her eyes and tsked. "Goon. This is a unique killing opportunity."

Goon raised an eyebrow at her. "Go on."

Raziela looked dreamily at the prospect. "We didn't get to kill the two-headed freak-cheetah. Imagine all the freak-cheetahs and freak-lions and freak-freaks we'll miss out on if we don't help."

Goon stuck out his lower lip. "Sold. Almost." He asked Haedrig, "Explain your mole-thoughts. Mole."

Haedrig disregarded the derision. "We just need it to absorb The Black Star's element. Essentially, do what you were going to do anyway: kill the 'freaks' Raziela mentioned, but bring back the element, presuming the power stays within the weapon."

Goon tapped his fingers against the weapon's horns. "Oh. Goody. So I'll be defenseless while I shlep the weird monkey-power back to you. Brilliant."

Spyro suggested, "Well, you could have the final kill. Think of it as a trophy."

"No," Goon said with narrowed eyes. He waggled his finger at Spyro. "A _Goon_ trophy."

Spyro sighed again. "Goon envy?"

"I love me."

"Fine. That settles the element capture. As for the matter of flight, well..." Spyro turned to the guardians. "Three flightless. Three capable."

The guardians gaped at the idea. Volteer stammered, "Us...us fly them? Doesn't seem like the most cerebral thing to do considering...well..."

Malefor interjected, his tone beaten. "How much more assurance do you need? Look at me: collared, powerless, flightless. I'm no better than an oversized dog at this point. I'm not even sure how I'm going to help."

Goon suggested, "Shield." Malefor glared at him. Goon insisted, "It's a worthy title you know." He pointed a thumb at Raziela. "She wears it proudly."

Raziela's ears lowered. "What?"

Malefor's chest rose as he breathed, held back the urge to lunge at the ferals. He forced his attention back to the guardians. "I think you should be more worried about _them._"

The guardians pivoted their heads to the ferals. Raziela said to them, "We'll be gentle." She crossed her arms around Shattersound and batted her eyes.

Cyril's upper lip stiffened. He said to Malefor, "Point put."

Spyro muttered, "Well, that's two resolved." He mulled over Malefor's words, his condition. He considered the guardians, their size, their mastery over their elements. He considered Flame's intensity and strength, Ember's subtle but adept manipulation of fire. Goon and Raziela had more than proved a challenge, their unique powers and prowess invaluable.

Malefor had none of those advantages. Spyro said to Haedrig, "Give the gauntlet to Malefor."

The idea made Haedrig apprehensive. "Malefor? Are you sure? His magic's bound. He wouldn't be able to take full advantage of it."

"True, but at the same time he doesn't have the abilities we do. He needs every advantage he can get. The magic leeched can still keep him strong, even if doesn't have his elements." Spyro tilted his head to Malefor. "Unless you decline."

"No," Malefor said. "I can appreciate the...craftmanship."

Haedrig ran his hand through his mane and breathed deeply. "Alright. I'll go get them." After some brief reluctance he strode into the house to retrieve the gauntlets.

Flame approached Spyro from behind, his face in a scowl. "I know we nearly killed each other over this, but...You're giving the gauntlet to him?"

"I am."

Flame smacked his tongue. "I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and ask: why is this a good idea?"

"Because Malefor's at a disadvantage, but with the gauntlet he won't physically tire when fighting."

Flame concurred with a relenting nod. "If he doesn't turn on us."

Spyro frowned wryly. "I can't deny that possibility, but I don't think mistreating him is the best option. I mean, what if he does get his power back? Finds a way around the collar? Would we really want to contend with that? More positively, wouldn't we want that on our side?"

Flame shrugged a shoulder. "Not sure if we want that kind of power with us. Then again, we don't need anymore enemies."

Haedrig emerged from his home with two gauntlets in his right hand and one in his left. He stepped towards Spyro only to halt, exchange stares with the other dragons.

The guardians gawked at the gauntlets, envious. Terrador remarked, "Why the macabre design?"

Haedrig shrugged. "They're not paw-warmers." The guardians murmured in agreement. Haedrig handed one gauntlet to Spyro, who fitted it over his paw and forearm. Cynder sided next to her mate and accepted the second gauntlet, strapped it tighter around her lither arm.

Malefor hesitated before he approached with slow steps, still disbelieving of the offering. He sat next to Spyro, and with some wariness he took the gauntlet from Haedrig, marveled at the metal and leather in his paw. After a moment he slipped it on, the leather firm against his scales, creaked as he curled and extended his paw. He rotated his forearm, inspected it further.

A grin crept across his muzzle as he leered at Haedrig. "You're too good to me."

Haedrig curled his arm to his chest. "You're welcome. I think."

Malefor took a deep breath and sighed. "So..." He turned to the guardians, the gauntlet still raised. "Who's giving me a ride?"

"Malefor," Spyro said as he slouched. "In case you haven't noticed we're about to drop."

"What?" Malefor sneered. "Sleep? Are you serious?"

"We'll need to eventually. Best that we sleep early when we have time. We may not get another chance."

Malefor let out a quiet groan. Somnolence tugged at his consciousness, made Spyro's suggestion appealing. "I don't want you to be right." He lowered himself onto his fours and carefully crossed his paws, the gauntlet upon the grass. "But you are." He closed his eyes, a languid smile across his muzzle.

Spyro observed Malefor's sleeping position. "You're sleeping with the gauntlet?"

Malefor opened an eye at him. "My gauntlet." He readjusted and settled his head.

Blankly, Spyro leaned slightly closer to the sleeping dragon. "Huh." He looked to Cynder, who shrugged in return. They left him to his slumber, their heads turned back at him as they walked towards the guardians. Cynder said, "It's odd, seeing him like that."

Spyro absently nodded. "He actually looks peaceful."

"Looks," Cynder stressed. She checked her own resentment. "Sorry."

Spyro squeezed her shoulder. "It's alright. Just try not to focus on the negative."

The guardians raised their heads up as Spyro and Cynder approached. Terrador asked the two, "Would you like us to be your lookout?"

Spyro's eyelids sagged at the anticipation of sleep. "Yes. That would be a blessing."

Terrador's eyes crinkled as he smiled. "You two look like you need it." He glanced over at the ferals, who had already made themselves comfortable. Raziela lied on her back, her leg bent and arm over her chest. Goon lied on his belly, his arms tucked beneath his torso, tail bent to the side. "Spyro," Terrador asked, "what really happened?"

"With the ferals?"

"Yes."

"Nothing that matters at the moment."

Terrador's gaze lingered on Spyro. He gave him an accepting nod. "I understand. Hopefully they'll be of help."

Spyro settled himself on his fours, his paws crossed. The gauntlet conformed well to his forearm, the leather softer than he realized. "I think they will. Just not for our reasons."

Terrador nodded again. "You two sleep well. We'll keep watch."

Cynder nestled herself next to Spyro, her muzzle against his neck. She murmured her thanks to them, her fatigue heavy as her consciousness faded.

"Of course," Terrador said. The guardians' tails lazily swayed, heads tilted down at the sleeping pair.

Flame and Ember joined Terrador's side, the red dragon's voice nearly at a whisper. "I think I need to apologize for my actions." He angled his head up at the guardians. "You three seem close to them."

Terrador returned the softness. "Yes. Spyro has been through much, as has Cynder. As for your brashness, it's understandable considering you and your mate's history." A slight change in tone. "It won't happen again, I hope?"

"No," Flame said. "No, it won't."

Terrador quietly uttered his approval, his vision back to Spyro and Cynder. He said to Flame, "Impressive, by the way."

Flame blinked, surprised by the comment. "What is?"

"Your power over fire."

Flame ran his eyes across the guardians. "Where's your fire guardian?" Terrador closed his eyes and shook his head. Flame thinned his lips and averted his eyes. "I'm sorry."

Volteer spoke to Flame. "It's not quite what you surmise it to be. Ignitus, while not with us, still exists in this world, if not on a different plane."

"Plane?"

"The White Isle."

"So it's still possible to see him?"

"Yes, though the White Isle's a...fickle place."

The idea of meeting Ignitus intrigued Flame, someone who shared his element, someone with greater experience. "I'd like to meet him if this all goes well."

Volteer accomodated the possibility. "I think he'd share the sentiment considering your aptitude."

Cyril remarked, "Just try not to incinerate everything in your path. Charring one's face doesn't endear you to the natives."

Flame hid his sheepishness. "I'll bear that in mind." A paw against his arm caught his attention. He turned to Ember, the dragoness' countenance beseeching.

Ember said, "I think we should sleep while we can. We don't know what we'll be dealing with."

Disappointment spread across Flame's face. "Yes...Guess you're right."

Ember directed her next words at the guardians. "Thank you for this. I wish circumstances were different."

Volteer said, "As do I. I've never seen such an unconventional manipulation of fire."

"Yes," Terrador conceded. "None of us have. Ignitus would be interested as well."

Ember held Flame tighter, restrained a simper. "I'd be open to that. As for us we'll need to rest."

"Of course," Terrador said. Flame and Ember gave the guardians a muted thanks before they found their own patch of grass.

Haedrig stood next to Sparx, the two before the door of the home. The mole crossed his arms. "We should take their cue."

"Sleep?" Sparx said. "You think I'm going to be able to sleep with the purple sheep breathing acid fire?"

Haedrig did a double-take. "What?"

"And you gave the dark goat master _claws._"

"Sparx, are you..."

"Hi ground!" Sparx collapsed onto the ground, his arms splayed.

Haedrig stared at him for a moment. "Huh. So he was tired." He gently scooped the dragonfly into his gloved hands. As much as he wanted to speak with the guardians, he couldn't ignore the somniferous pull at his mind. He held Sparx to his chest and gave the guardians a wave before he entered his home and closed the door. He breathed deeply and shuffled towards his wool-stuffed bedding, the woven, gray woolen cloth around it a warm violet before the glowing crystals within the alcoves.

He laid Sparx out within one of the alcoves before he knelt before his bed and rolled into it, his gloved hand against his chest. With a relieved sigh he closed his eyes and lost himself within muddled thoughts and images.

{{}}

"_Malefor._" Ragged breathing before clenched fangs, the thudding of heavy steps across trampled, slick soil. Lighter pattering came from behind him.

An aberration in the pursuit, a heavier thud. One of them couldn't keep up. One of them would stay. Perish.

"_Malefor._" The lead lionman halted before a precipice, his knotted chest agleam with scars, spiked with crystalline projections. His greasy mane curtained his black eyes, his teeth yellowed and brown. He looked out over the landscape, his mind befuddled at the death before it, the ground cratered with holes, treacherous.

Two cheetahmen and another lionman joined his side, their twitching heads lowered at the grounds below, bodies swathed in dank, frayed cloth. The other lionman asked, "Is he here?"

The lead lionman, the largest of the Aphos, shuddered as he inhaled. His nostrils flared as the image came to him. A cowled ape, again. It walked within his mind, left wilting life in its wake. "_The ape. Again._"

A sharp inhalation. His head darted to the right. "_Close._"

"How close?"

"_Follow._"

They ran left, followed the cliff's winding descent to the lower level, alternated between two feet and fours as they navigated the uneven terrain. They reached the bottom and stopped, the lead Aphos hunched. "_Where?"_ It clenched its temples, the sharpening image of The Black Star close, the false beacons within the deity's eyes blinding.

"_Where?_" His brethren bent at the knees, stood hunched with their narrowed eyes up at him. He spun to them, chin to his chest as strands of his mane dangled. "_Why don't you see?_"

Almost in unison they shook their heads. "Not the dark master," said one of the cheetahman.

"This one is false," said the other.

The smaller lionman ran a taut, shaky hand across his brow. "Smear in our heads."

The lead Aphos' glare shifted to each of them. He turned his back to them. His wide shoulders rose and fell with rattled breaths. He said in defeat, "_Here and gone._" His sight creeped around the nigrescent sweeps of terrain, barely gray before the bellowing sky.

Illumination broke through the overcast, pure, warm rays of life upon the dying grounds. A figure emerged within the light, face cowled and black.

Two pinpoints of light shone.

The lionman pointed at the figure, roared to his brethren. "_It's him!_" His brethren rose to their feet, lined themselves next to the lead Aphos.

The Black Star vanished, emerged closer. He vanished again, his flickering image closer, the pinpoints seared within the onlookers' vision.

He stood before them, two heads shorter before the lead Aphos, his cowled head downcast. The lead Aphos stepped towards the The Black Star. His brethren followed, encircled the deity.

The lead Aphos asked him, "_Why do you encroach upon my mind?_"

No answer. A slight wind carried a guttural undertow. He stepped closer to the deity. Again, he asked, "_Why do you encroach upon my mind?_" No answer.

The other lionman said up to his leader, "Let us rid him from our thoughts." Rasped consent echoed through the Aphos, their claws bared, manged and torn ears back.

A swipe blurred to The Black Star's left. The deity caught the arm, and a strident scream ensued as the cheetahman's hand was pinched off. The bleeding stump blackened in tendrils, and the cheetahman found himself reeled onto his back as he sought to escape his own limb, the tendrils to his shoulder, neck, muzzle, eyes, encapsulated him within decay.

The other Aphos backed away from the slain cheetahman, who's body sunk into the muddied ground, became consumed by it. The lead lionman reeled. "_No fire. Our master promised fire._"

The Black Star faced the lead Aphos, palms outward. "Your master is crippled."

"_But he lives._"

"He perpetuates the motions. The mimicry burdens him."

"_How do you know?_"

The Black Star didn't answer. Instead he walked over to where the cheetahman had sunk. He spread his hand above the spot. A moment of stillness before the ground churned below him, and from it sprouted a tangle of limbs: wiry sinew with clawed phalanges that latched onto the ground, pulled, and pushed.

An amalgamation rose from the rot, its thinner torso balanced by bulky legs and a serpentine neck, its long head horned and knotted. It lurched as liquid light dripped from its jaws and tear ducts, and a pained whine came from it as it buckled to its fours, its back bowed, the knobs of its spine sharp beneath dried flesh.

The Black Star ambled over to the larger lionman, who didn't budge despite the deity's power. The lead Aphos said down to the deity, "_You will not take his stead._"

"I have no desire to."

"_Then what do you want?_"

The Black Star swept his hand across the rotting terrain. "New death. New life. Nuances between."

The lead Aphos grimaced, his discolored fangs bared. "_One death. New life. That was the inevitability._"

"And now your master cavorts with the savior."

The lead Aphos trembled in outrage, the other Aphos befuddled by the revelation. The smaller lionman crouched, his arms spread as a sharp roar came from him. "He would not defect!"

"He has," The Black Star said, unfazed. "His purification failed. I offer an end and a beginning, the advent of limbo, where darkness and light are one."

The lead Aphos shook his head. "_You will not be our master._"

"There is no master." The Black Star clamped his hand over the lead Aphos' face, the lionman's screaming muffled. "No providence, no divinity." Threads of light seethed from the deity's fingertips and wormed into the lionman's skull, who wrenched himself away, his head in his palms as he collapsed, his cries erratic. The other Aphos fled only for the ground to reach out and ensnare them: amorphous hands that dragged their flailing bodies down into the sludge, their shrieks drowned beneath mud, their outstretched hands engulfed.

The Black Star canted his head down at the lead Aphos, who still had his face in his palms. "Rise." The lionman's cries dwindled. His hands slid down his face, exposed eyes illuminated with pinpoints of light. Stiffly, he rose to his feet, his blinding pupils aimed down at the The Black Star.

The ground churned around them, and from it sprang more of the amalgamated: creatures neither mammalian or reptilian, their fur manged amongst patched scales. Extra limbs jutted from their backs and sides, their wings black and leathery. They scuttled towards their Aphos leader, who stood in obsequence before the deity.

The Black Star said, "I will call you Hull, for that is what you were and always will be."

Hull said in turn, "What do you ask of me?"

"Find the former dark master and his cohorts. Break them. Kill them if you must. It matters not."

Hull breathed deeply. The pinpoints rolled into his head. He sought Malefor's image, his presence, waited for the familiar burn through his body, the conflagrative vision of what the dark master had promised. The bumps of his thick flesh pricked as Malefor's slumbering figure burned into his mind's eye.

The light of Hull's eyes returned. "He is found." Like a moth to the flame he veered west with the amalgamated in his wake. Their fleetness overcame the terrain's obstacles, progress augmented by The Black Star's power.

They would reach their former dark master soon.


	16. Chapter 16

The guardians softly chatted, exchanged delayed musings as the other dragons and ferals slept around them. Cyril curved his neck towards Volteer, the ice dragon's annoyed tone repressed. "You would think that!"

Volteer flinched. "It's a perfectly plausible theory."

"After _head trauma,_" Cyril spat. "This Black Star is not a damn monkey!"

"But what about Gaul? That ponderous primate was the recipient of a vast amount of Malefor's power."

Cyril pinched his brow. "Volteer, from the sound of it The Black Star _is_ a vast amount of power. Far more twisted for that matter."

Volteer slanted his head, brow knitted. "Do you think this power will change them?"

"Spyro and Cynder? The false light?"

"Yes."

A crooked frown formed on Cyril's muzzle. "Malefor didn't convert them. I think they'll be fine."

Volteer stretched his neck forward, his admittance uneasy. "True. But...how much more influence can they take?"

Inquisitive, Terrador reared his head towards Volteer. "What do you mean?"

"Well..." The words didn't come easily. "Considering everything they've done already for Avalar, what had to be done, what The Black Star almost made them do. And now they want this element? This false light?" He shifted on his paws, his speech tremulous. "I-I...don't like it Terrador. I don't like the connotations."

"Connotations?"

Volteer wet his lips and looked away. "A false light could mean good intentions, but how they're carried out...That's what scares me. That kind of power combined with Malefor's darkness―"

"Volteer." Terrador squeezed the yellow dragon's shoulder. "We keep mentioning Malefor's darkness. But think about what we've witnessed. Our trust with him may be tentative, but none of us could have ever imagined this alliance. The power is ultimately dictated by the wielder."

Volteer gave him a slow nod. "Yes. Yes that's true, but...how much can the mind take? Always bending between absolutes, pulling them, closer but farther."

Terrador lightly shook him. "That's why we're here. So he doesn't lose direction."

The assurance pacified Volteer despite his somberness. "He's certainly not alone." He glanced at the ferals, noticed that Goon had awaken. Slight movement in his periphery caught his attention. Cynder readjusted herself, her eyes barely open before she resettled. Volteer whispered to Terrador, "You think they're waking up?"

Goon overheard the whisper. "Yup." He sided himself next to Cynder and plopped himself down, much to the guardians' displeasure. He said up to them, "But I'll make sure." He rolled his head towards her. "Hey. Hey."

Cynder's lip curled. Goon continued. "I know you're awake."

Cynder's eyes shot open, her voice acerbic. "How could you tell?"

Goon simpered and rested his chin in his palm. "I just took a wild guess."

Cynder bolted up and bowed her neck towards him, her glare piercing. "Don't toy with me."

Spyro's tired voice intervened, his eyelids closed. "Raziela..."

The female feral scampered to consciousness, her head this way and that. "Mah?"

"Go hit Goon." Spyro smiled at Goon's backpedaling protests. They were followed by a solid thwack. "Thanks Raziela."

"Mah-ah."

Malefor stretched himself awake, shook the drowse from his head. With stiff steps he approached Spyro and Cynder, his head tilted at Raziela and Goon. The male feral stood with his arms crossed, his expression smoldering. Malefor asked Goon, "Why the umbrage?"

Goon pursed his lips. "Because a certain _someone_ keeps taking orders from purple dragons." He whipped his head up at Raziela. "Why am I not surprised?"

Raziela smirked down at him. "Keep talking, Goon. I love the taste of jealousy."

"Explains the hips. Lay off the sweets."

"_What?_"

Malefor waved them off and grumbled, "Too early for you." He continued his tired walk towards Spyro and Cynder. "So," he said with a breath, "where to?"

Spyro rose on his fours, a low groan from the back of his throat, his voice croaky. "The Black Star's not subtle, at least. If we see anything like what he demonstrated then we're bound to find one of his creations."

"Sounds simple," Malefor said dubiously. "But how strong are they?"

"Nothing to be trifled with, but not invincible. I can't say that for all of them. We're better numbered too. Still, I doubt he's created something to his full potential."

Malefor's mouth slackened as he held a paw out. "Well, can we do something about it or not?"

"Oh we don't have a choice."

A croaking groan came from Malefor. He brought his gauntlet up to eye-level, curled the phalanges. "I'm sure this will make things simpler."

Flame and Ember awoke together. The red dragon winced and rubbed his neck. Ember asked in concern, "Are you okay?"

"Oh, fine," Flame replied as he began his stiff walk towards Spyro and Cynder. "I only prevented a giant spear from impaling me after I cratered the ground."

Ember tilted her head at him in consideration. "Well. Maybe you'll play nicer next time."

A blank expression came across Flame's face. "How nice?"

"I love you. Don't start."

"Okay."

The two grouped with the rest of the dragons, the ferals still in the middle of an argument. Spyro called to them, but they paid him no mind. He instead strolled over to Flame. "I think this is the worst I've seen them."

Flame raised his head at the ferals. "Is this typical for them?"

"Very."

Flame blinked, his brow creased in thought. Ember didn't like the expression. "Flame, are you going to-"

"Don't worry. No one will die."

"Die?"

Flame strode over to the arguing pair. Goon, in mid-sentence, was picked up off his feet by the red dragon, the grip like iron around the feral's arms as he carried him to the dragons. Raziela held her hand out, stunned and speechless.

Goon frowned intensely. "Coming on strong, aren't ya?"

"Don't fight it."

"And if I do?"

"I'm hungry."

Goon cringed. "Do not want."

"That's what I thought." Flame set Goon down next to Spyro and Cynder.

Spyro grinned at the feral. "Goon envy?"

The red feral scowled at nothing, his arms crossed. "I'm irresistible."

Flame turned his head to Raziela, the female feral ready to fight, her Shattersound's blades held out in front of her. She snarled, "_Don't. You. Dare._"

Flame shrugged. "What are you talking about? I just want to eat your friend."

Raziela's quills rose, her mouth agape. "FRIENDS AREN'T FOOD!"

"Convince me otherwise."

Strangled curses came from Raziela's throat, her teeth gritted as she followed after Flame.

Amused, Flame said, "I thought we were friends."

She jabbed a finger at Flame, her chest held high and her weapon to her side. "I HATE YOU!"

"You don't even know me."

Raziela bit her lower lip, drew a bead of blood. She hunched and said with lilting anger, "I don't need to kn-o-o-o-ow you to _hate you._"

Flame ignored her and sat himself next to Spyro. Spyro, pleased with Flame's ploy, gave a smarmy grin to Raziela and beckoned her over.

Raziela, with her fangs exposed, walked with rigid steps towards them. Stiffly, she drove Shattersound into the ground. "_Fine._ What's our next course of _action?_"

Spyro angled his head up at the Guardians. "You'll ride atop Cyril's back. You don't seem to hate him as much."

"Not yet," Raziela admitted. She darted her head to Cyril, her tone petulant. "Just don't drop me."

Cyril shrugged in return. "I'll bear that in mind. Worst case scenario: I'll keep your temper on ice." Raziela crinkled her nose up at him. Cyril sighed. "Look, it's funny."

Spyro went on. "Goon. I know you probably hate all of us equally."

"Because I care," Goon replied.

"Which is why you'll ride with Volteer."

Goon's head creeped up at Volteer. He bared his teeth and gave a bastardized smile to the yellow dragon.

Volteer didn't share the enthusiasm. "I'm sure this will be enlightening with a reprobate such as yourself."

Goon, still grinning, said through clenched teeth, "And my headache's back."

Spyro raised his eyebrows and turned to Malefor. "I guess that leaves you and Terrador."

"Yes," Malefor replied staidly, his eyes up at Terrador. "Suppose it does."

Terrador shifted on his fours, his head down at Malefor. "Whatever transpired, I'm hoping it's for the better. If Spyro and Cynder have put their trust in you then so shall I. I recommend you not betray it."

Malefor huffed and chuckled. "Betrayal..." Cynder's image came to mind, her adult form, the one granted to him by his prior power. Something sad tinged his face, constricted his voice. "Nothing to be gained from betrayal."

Malefor's pensiveness intrigued Terrador, but he let it be. "I see. Well..." He accounted everyone, the ferals' awkward climb onto Cyril and Volteer. Flame stirred in place while Ember patiently waited. Spyro and Cynder's attention diverted to the doors. Terrador asked them, "What is it?"

The two glanced at Terrador. Spyro said, "We need to tell Haedrig and Sparx that we're...Well would you look at that."

Haedrig and Sparx emerged from the home. Haedrig wiped his eyes, his hand at the back of his mane. He trudged towards them with Sparx at his side. "So," the mole said with some awkwardness, "seems my metal is finally being tested."

Spyro canted his head at Haedrig. "Your mettle?"

Haedrig gave him a quiet laugh and waved off the comment. "A poor jest. But I suppose both will be tested in time." He dry-washed his hands, his head low in thought. "Hope, as Flame said, may have barbs. But..." He smiled a little. "We can always shear those off."

Flame chuckled at that. "An apt analogy if I've heard one."

Haedrig returned the lightheartedness. "As for all of you, ferals included...Everything I have is available to you. I wish I was physically capable." He patted his revolver. "This is about the only thing I have, and I won't think twice to use it if need be. But I'm not deluding myself. I wouldn't last very long out there. Now that I think about it I'm surprised...no, amazed, by Sparx's dedication."

Sparx shrugged. "Not being fat and stupid helps."

Spyro groaned. "You're not going to let that down, are you?"

"One day you'll grow up to be as good as me."

Haedrig grinned wryly. "Suppose I should leave you two for now." He held his hand up to the guardians. "Perhaps another time?" The guardians nodded down at the mole. Haedrig said to Sparx, "I'll be inside," before he turned and left them.

Sparx breathed and levitated up, lowered with an exhale. "This is becoming a pattern you know."

Spyro frowned a little. "Me leaving you?"

"Yeah."

Spyro winced. "I'm hoping one of these days we won't have to worry anymore."

"No," Sparx said with gentle admonition. "We want to keep worrying, but about different things. You know: ramming sheep, flying competitions after mead, harassing the locals. The important things in life."

Spyro's eyes crinkled. "I want that more than ever."

"So do I! I mean look at you: all hardened and scarred and stuff. Makes me yearn for the older days." Sparx directed a finger at Cynder. "And you! Little dragoness!"

Cynder cocked an eyebrow. "Little?"

"Keep an eye on him. He gets sidetracked. By you. You'll have to lay off your tramp-lizard ways for now."

Cynder thinned her lips and suppressed a smile. "I think I can do that."

Goon called from atop Volteer, "Hey. Hey! Hey hi! What are ya doin'? What are ya doin'? What are ya doin'..."

Spyro sighed in agitation. Sparx asked him, "Is he going to keep doing that?"

"Probably."

Impressed, Sparx nodded and crossed his arms. "He's almost as annoying as me."

Cynder said, "Oh trust me. You're an Ignitus compared to him."

"Scary thought."

Spyro cast an odious look at Goon, enough to staunch the feral's harrying. He turned back to Sparx. "Help out Haedrig the best you can. We'll try to get back to you in one piece."

Sparx smiled wanly. "It's the best thing you can do for now. You know...Besides save the world. Again."

Spyro kept his doubts to himself. "Best thing I can do."


	17. Chapter 17

The air rumbled through the dragons' and ferals' ears, their formation staggered as their wings beat the chilled wind. Spyro strained his eyes at the ruined land below. Something tugged at him, the slightest suggestion, an unexpected twinge in his muscles. East. He needed to go more east.

He made the turn subtly, and the rest of the dragons followed. Again, the tug, something he couldn't readily identify. It snagged him, its pull suggestive. A part of him fought the urge, turned away from it, wanted to rely on sight alone.

He descended, silenced the inner warnings. The voices grew frantic as the land grew larger before his vision, its murky borders obscured by a mist.

Another tug. A plume of clouds rushed towards him, their approach sudden. He pushed through them, the air chillier, wet. He clenched his teeth to prevent chattering as his body trembled. He didn't look back at the other dragons. He only hoped they would take his heed.

The fog grew thinner, darker. Beneath the frigidness came an odor: ozone, thick with acridness. Another fetor came after, one that made his belly constrict, his throat tighten.

Decomposition. The veil of haze parted. Spyro yelped, and his wings snapped the air, buffeted the slick blackness beneath him. A succession of splitting air came from behind him, followed by steady flapping. Inwardly he thanked the presence of his allies, even the ferals.

Rot. It surrounded them, streaked with barely visible browns and greens. Spyro clenched his teeth and let himself land. The ground squelched beneath his paws, and his claws instinctively dug for better traction. He sighed a little. Some bedrock still remained, though that puzzled him. How far had the decay gone?

Terrador's ponderous steps came from behind him. Distantly, he asked Spyro, "Is this his work?"

"It is. He could make life out of this if he wanted to."

Cynder walked to Spyro's side. Flame and Ember followed shortly after. Ember panned her sight around the darkly misted land. "So strange, the mind of destroyers."

Malefor checked his tone before he spoke to Ember. He didn't want to contend with Flame. "I wouldn't look at him as a destroyer."

Ember pulled her paw up, cringed as the substance stretched. "What is he then?"

Malefor's own answer surprised him. "The lowest of life given godhood. As Spyro said he could make this land bloom, and in a way he did. He did it in the way of bottom feeders, of the ones closest to death."

Ember pondered that, gave a small shake of her head. "But they have their place too. Why everything like that?"

"That," Malefor said as he took in the desolate sweeps of terrain, "is where my understanding ends."

Terrador lumbered forward, his brow furrowed. "A sadist from the looks of it."

Spyro agreed. "Sadist of worlds. I don't think he gave all his victims this fate."

Terrador asked Spyro, "But what's to be gained? A sense of power? When does it end?"

Spyro's claws scratched upon the clammy, porous rock as he walked. "With him I imagine it doesn't. It took a certain mind to put him where he is. Now..." He brushed the muck aside, exposed the crannies of stone filled with filth. "It's a way of existence for him. Wouldn't even call it life."

Goon's voice came from behind them. "Squishy," he commented as he strolled towards them, his weapon over his neck. "I love the feel of decay beneath my feet." He gave the ground a double-squish with his feet. "Music to my nightmares let me tell ya."

Raziela walked next to him, a scowl etched on her face. "This isn't a nightmare. It's just icky."

"You're icky," Goon shot back.

"How's your butt feel, Goon?"

"Like your head."

Spyro clenched his gauntlet and rammed it into the ground, the clanging of metal on stone deafening. He jerked his head to the ferals, jaw tensed. "We need your fighting arm, not your mouth. iStop. Bickering./i" His glare lingered a bit longer before he continued his treading.

Goon and Raziela exchanged a surprised stare. He whispered to her, "Someone didn't have their beauty sleep."

Raziela briefly mulled on that. "You must have insomnia in that case."

Goon lent her a flat glare. He flicked her ear and quickly shushed her. "Don't want to wake the purple dragon now, do we?" Raziela strangled back her curses.

Spyro's outburst had created a curtain of silence amongst them. Spyro himself didn't want to talk. His head oscillated from left to right, searched for the strange tug. The power behind the pull had dispersed now, everywhere and nowhere.

Spyro stopped, as did the dragons and ferals behind him. His head darted left. Right. His voice grew lower, raspier. "I don't like this. I can't trace it."

Malefor approached from behind. "Trace what?"

"There was a pull. It's the reason we're here now. It guided me."

Malefor tugged at his collar. "Burning."

"That's how it's coming to you?"

Malefor cringed, his breathing faster. "Don't know. Wasn't like this before."

"Like what..."

Light erupted from the mist. A glistening maw with countless teeth sped towards them, the creature's wiry body stretched with sinew. Spyro pivoted on his fours and swung his gauntlet. It connected with a thump and fleshy serration, left gashes across the creature's cheek. It screamed as white fluid erupted from its mouth, bled from its wounds. It breathed in, gurgled. The white liquid became as a glowing vapor, luminescent. It exhaled, the wisps like coalescing claws after its quarry.

Cynder intervened, exhaled a wailing gust that pushed the vapor back. She switched elements, and with a piercing scream she summoned the essence of fear. The fog turned crimson before the element, and the creature's head tossed as black and red tendrils sunk into it. It shrieked and shirked, snapped at the dragons as it backpedaled.

Spyro shouted, "Goon, now!" Goon blurred past them, and his red form blended inside the matching haze. Another veil of mist rolled in, obscured the feral and his prey. Spastic cries reverberated throughout, and a spray of blackened blood stung Spyro with its heat. He wiped it off, waited for Goon to emerge.

Double or Nothing glowed white within Goon's hand. The feral emerged from the mist, shook the dark fluids from his body. "I reiterate: Ew."

Spyro slanted his head. "You didn't get any of the false light on you?"

"Where do you think it went?" Goon waggled his weapon in front of Spyro's face. "This what you wanted? Goody. Let's go see the mole..."

The air and stone trembled with a guttural voice, near yet far. The dragons tried to track it, but couldn't.

"Master..."

A chorus of shrill howls followed. "MASTER!"

Ember stilled, her lips parted as a stricken frown spread across her muzzle. Timorously, she whispered, "Flame."

Flame sided next to his mate. "What is it?"

"That voice." Ember closed her eyes, smothered her fear. "That's the voice that gave the order."

Flame barely breathed at the revelation. He searched the reddened fog, the anger within him black. "Master...What master?"

Malefor's eyes glazed, his own breath caught in his throat. His sigh came out rattled as he winced against the collar's searing. "Me." He stepped forward. "They want me."

Flame spun towards Malefor. "How do you know?"

"Who else bore that title?" Malefor clenched his teeth, his muzzle crinkled. He inhaled through his nose and raised his head, his voice tired. "What do you want from me?"

The rumble came again. "You promised the cradle of fire."

The cries came again, broken. "Promised."

"Cradle."

"Fire."

Malefor swallowed, his nostrils flared. "I'm not your master anymore."

The air settled from the reverberations. The wind mourned as susurrations played across the mist, the wisps shaken. "No cradle."

"No end."

"No beginning."

Heavy steps shook the ground, the guttural voice closer. "Our fallen master, broken before The Godeater."

"The Godeater?" Malefor said. "You mean The Black Star?"

"As you perceive with the light given by him, absolute within the mind's prison." The footsteps neared, the thing's breathing strained, wet.

"So you serve him now? Flocked to a greater power?"

"We are without closure, without direction. We do not wander. We drown." The mists parted. Two pinpoints of light ignited. Ember gasped and reeled, her breathing tremulous.

Hull stood before them, his body slabbed with dull sinew, smeared with canker, loin cloth frayed and dank. It turned its thick neck to Ember, the dragoness' paw against the gem in her chest. She lowered her head, eyes thin with old malice.

Hull canted his head at her. "Dragoness...You are familiar to me."

Flame stood himself between Ember and Hull. He spread his wings, and with a shimmer of sweltering air his scales blackened and burned, the mist darkened by ash. "She's of no concern to you."

Torpidly, Hull turned to Flame. "She wasn't before."

Flame stepped forward. A blinding flash of light erupted from Hull's eyes. The dragons and ferals covered their faces, glimpsed the figure through the crooks of their arms.

Malefor brought his arm to his eyes, his head lowered against the dimming light. He struggled to speak through the burning. Foreign emotions sided next to his anxiety, his disorientation: disappointment, hopelessness. He pushed them aside. "Nothing?" he said in contempt. "You fight for nothing now?"

"No," Hull said. "Not even that is promised."

The collar's burning intensified. Malefor cried out at first, his breathing between clenched teeth. An old emotion came to him: power, albeit muddled by confusion. He surmised the source to be from the Aphos, yet couldn't find the reason. "And this power? You wield it as his dog?"

"We knew of his sullying before, his stain upon your mind. He always held the greater hand."

"Sheep!" Malefor cackled. "This is all this is. Need someone to guide you, lest you consult the tangled mess you call your mind." An ache twisted his visage, one of both body and mind.

Spyro and Cynder turned to each other, to Malefor. Concern and suspicion shared the same space between the two. Cynder whispered to Spyro, "It's the old him. The voice. The arrogance."

Spyro whispered back, "But why now? Because of the Aphos?"

"They're tied somehow."

Malefor spoke over them, to Hull. "You think your Godeater, The Black Star, is going to spare you? What have you to gain for this?"

The remaining three amalgamations sided next to Hull, the white light at a steady drip from their jaws. Hull said to Malefor, "There is nothing to gain, not when The Godeater is sated."

"So that's it?" Malefor scorned. "The Aphos, so ardent for fire, are now content to rot in The Black Star's mire?"

"And which one of you will stop him?" Hull spread his arms, the striations of his shoulders and neck like a thousand cuts. The white pinpoints of his eyes flashed again. "Which one of you will stop me?" Threads of light snaked from his fingertips and entangled the amalgamations. The beasts tossed their heads up as the light slithered into their dried flesh, and their heads convulsed as abandoned howls came from them.

The thew beneath the flesh swelled, the torn flesh anew as skin grew and stretched across the tears. Their limbs thickened, jaws lengthened with the popping of bone and dull rip of tendons, the light in their eyes brighter.

Terrador stepped forward with Volteer and Cyril at his side. The earth dragon lunged, his arm reared. Slabs of stone sprung from the ground, merged around his arm and formed a spine of sharpened rock that swiveled and whistled through the air.

Hull intercepted with a splayed palm. He caught the stone whip and swung it aside, allowed the amalgamated beasts to grow. The stone whip segmented, the hovering sharp points aimed at Hull. They hissed through the air, perforated him. His body jerked against the onslaught, and his wounds wept thickly with light and blood. With a long, rattled breath he stood, his fangs lined with bleeding light.

Terrador shouted, "Kill them! Don't let them grow stronger!"

Volteer shot forward in a streak of ocher lightning, rammed the amalgamated to the left of Hull. The dragon's electricity transferred to the beast, its movement convulsive as it reeled. Its claws sank into the rotted ground, the white light from its mouth profuse as it lowered its head.

Its eyes and maw burst with refulgence. Volteer shielded his eyes, channeled an electric current through the wet ground towards the beast. The beast leaped over it towards Volteer, took advantage of his blind state.

Cyril intercepted, tackled the creature mid-air, pinned it to the ground. From his shoulders extended icicles that sharpened to a jagged point. Cyril stabbed, and the creature shrieked as it writhed below him. It guarded with its arms, barely evaded as its forearms and shoulders were riddled by the dragon's vicious stabs.

Viscous light poured forth from its screaming mouth. Cyril cradled his face, snarled, swept the creature aside. It rose to its fours, its teeth alight as it scuttled towards Cyril.

A curtain of rose fire barred it from the ice dragon. Ember swept her wings, her gem gleaming as a wave of vermillion fire surged towards the creature, enveloped it. The amalgamated thrashed, tried to shake the adhering flames from its body.

Something snagged Ember's neck, two indomitable hands that choked the dragoness' cry, suspended her off her fours. Trickles of light ran to Hull's fingertips, his voice grating. "Consummate."

A clawed, metal paw met Hull's throat. A talon sank into neck and ripped across it, sent a spray of ichor. Hull dropped Ember and held his hand to the gash.

Malefor kicked off Hull and called to Flame. "Trust enough for you? Kill him!"

Hull pivoted only to witness Flame's blazing form barrel towards him. Hull held his splayed hands out, his breathing gurgled as white orbs grew within his palms. Flame met the element with his: great globes of roiling fire around his paws that surrounded Hull's orbs of light, the two locked as their elements combated.

Malefor sank to the ground, grimaced as the burning around his neck intensified. "Spyro! Cynder!"

The two stopped mid-run towards the fray. They changed direction towards Malefor. Spyro hollered, "What's wrong?"

"This damn collar!" Malefor cried out again as smoke erupted from the collar's rim. "I don't know what's happening!"

Spyro turned to Cynder, the dragoness' countenance askance. It donned on her then. "His power's coming back."

Spyro shook his head. "How?"

"The Aphos. It has to be the Aphos."

Malefor growled, "Good...to know." He pawed at the collar, futilely tried to pry it off. He raised his head, and his eyes widened at the scene in front of them.

Flame's strength waned as the white light grew within the surrounding spheres of fire. Hull buckled the red dragon onto his back, the ichor from Hull's torn throat aglint with Flame's dying blaze. Ember gasped and rose only to turn to the sound of heavy pattering.

The other amalgamated loomed over her, its paw held high. A line of jagged stone erupted from the ground, impaled the creature. With clenched teeth it wrenched its torso from the spears. It spun towards Volteer and Terrador as they charged, the bleeding light thick from its chest and mouth.

With a wet roar the false light spattered upon the two guardians, soaked into their scales. Volteer and Terrador stumbled, dazed as they fought to get to their fours as the element drained their spirit. The creature scrabbled towards them, mouth agape with fangs.

Metal shrieked through the air, and a silver blur separated the creature's right arm. It leaned its torso to the side to correct the imbalance, and its other hands caught the ground as it breathed a plume of light at Raziela. The female feral skidded back, and her tail snapped the air as she changed direction and went for its back.

The creature backpedaled from her, kept his back away from her. Two prongs touched the nape of its neck.

Goon said, "You look tense." He sank Double or Nothing into the creature's neck. The creature bucked and howled even as Goon stayed latched and drew the energy from it. He yanked out his weapon and leaped off.

The amalgamated pursued the red feral, sent a barrage of swipes at him. Goon backpedaled as he protested, "No, no, no, no, no— not fair."

Another amalgamated struck him, tumbled him to the side. The two creatures pursued only to stagger as a rumbling wave ripped through the ground towards them, knocked them back.

Raziela vaulted, her Shattersound reared. The tips sank into one of the creatures' eyes. She kicked herself off its snout and tore the weapon out just as the other creature bucked its head into her, flung her to the ground. It gave chase only for a thin spine of sharpened stone to wrap around its jaw.

Terrador's arm bulged as he yanked, popped its mandible from its tendons. Its jaw dangled as a muffled moan came from it.

The battle shifted.

Hull extinguished Flame's fire, kicked him to the side with a dull break of scale and bone. Ember lashed out again, sent shimmering, hissing coils of heat towards Hull.

Hull, perforated and bleeding, took the coils through him, his flesh cauterized. He tossed his head up, ripped the air with a stentorian roar. A nova circled from him, flooded the dragons' and ferals' vision with an intensity that burned their scales.

They struggled to see, winced against their spotted vision. Through the haze the pinpoints of Hull's eyes brightened, his wounds closed. "iUseless/i." The amalgamated limped back to him as they bled with the false light. The dragons and ferals moved in to stop them only for another flash to erupt from Hull, drive them further back.

Malefor trembled as hot tears leaked from his eyes, the burning intolerable. He rasped, "Cynder. Cynder, unbind me."

Through the glaring light she glimpsed Malefor's silhouette. Through clenched teeth she said, "No!"

"Release me!" The pain brought him to his belly. "I can stop this. I swear I can."

"How?"

"They're tied to me. The black crystals...still there."

Cynder's muzzle furrowed, her mind at odds with her emotion. "Don't make me regret this."

"If we're dead it won't matter."

Cynder turned to Spyro, her contracted pupils at his. He gave her an assenting nod. Cynder inhaled deeply, and with a flick of her paw she sent tendrils of grasping darkness towards Malefor's collar. Innumerable dark fingers latched onto the collar, sank into the clasps, and with a rush of air and a series of snaps it segmented from Malefor's neck.

Malefor gasped, the freedom from pain an opiate. Amber light washed over his eyes, his slitted pupils as a void. A wry grin tinged his muzzle.

Hull pointed at Malefor, and the amalgamated took heed. He said to the creatures, "You are beyond them now. End them." The amalgamated stepped forward and stopped. They glanced between Hull and Malefor, hesitant. Hull grew impatient. "You heard me."

Malefor approached them with languid steps. Bruised energy spilled from his paws, stuck to him in thick stretches. It crawled up his arms to his torso, where it swayed through the air like foliage beneath waters.

Hull crouched forward, the muscle of his neck like a cowl. "END THEM!"

Malefor stood between the amalgamated, the creatures unmoving, uncertain. He sat on his haunches and spread his arms. He spoke, the word soft, barbed. "Closer."

The amalgamated tossed their heads yet obeyed, took shaky steps towards Malefor. Bewildered, Hull shouted to them, "What are you doing?"

Again, Malefor beckoned. "Closer."

A small quail came from the amalgamated, yet they still obeyed. They stood before Malefor, heads turned away.

"Closer."

They lowered their heads in obsequence, averted their gaze. Malefor's smile met his eyes. His paws snaked out and snatched their muzzles. The talons of his gauntlet sank into the creature to his right, and the bruised energy of his left paw stretched between the digits, creeped around the other creature's muzzle and wrapped it shut.

Their paws scrabbled the ground, their struggling to no avail, their screaming muffled. Their dried flesh blackened, became as ash, exposed the inner machinations of their body, the vascularity bright with false light. The light faded, and their struggling waned as Malefor sapped the raw energy from them. With a final shudder they collapsed, their bodies as crumbled husks.

Malefor set himself on his fours, crushed the skulls of the amalgamated. Wisps of white coalesced from the corpses, only to be drawn back in and dispersed. Malefor's eyes flashed. He ambled towards Hull, his smile broader. Purplish fire plumed from his nostrils, wound through the air and undulated alongside him.

The flames sprang forth, ensnared Hull's arms and brought him to his belly, his face scraped against the porous, filthy stone. The lionman struggled against the clinging fire, thick like molten sap.

Malefor spoke, a dark flame upon the tip of his tongue. "The cradle rocks, minion."


	18. Chapter 18

The dragons and ferals leaned their heads in, uncertain of Malefor's intentions. They focused on the exchanged words between the dark dragon and Hull.

A strange vacancy emanated from Malefor's amber eyes, their stillness, the lids crinkled within an opiate of power. Despite the dominance he exuded he spoke with a cold calm, his words like frigid drops. "What's wrong, dearest minion?" Lethargically, he slanted his head at Hull's struggling. "This is what you wanted, isn't it?"

"No!" A strangled cry came from Hull as the bruised fire singed deeper, swayed around the flesh like water's refractions. "Not like this!"

Malefor gave him a muffled chuckle. "And how many times did our victims say that?" He sighed as Hull thrashed, stoic against the lionman's choked growls. He leaned his head forward, voice at a rasped whisper. "_And how many times did we insist?_"

A wet gasp came from Hull. "What is this?"

A slight smirk. "I'm not quite sure myself." Hull's agonized growling dwindled to suppressed sobs as his flesh smoked and body trembled. Something in Malefor awakened, something base and sadistic, vindictive. This creature's fall aroused the recesses of a mind starved for power, for control. He had both now.

But within that vestibule of power he passed an echo.

'_Take the edge off. No one should have to go through that._'

Malefor whispered to himself, "Spyro?" He mused the voice as a phantasm, some mimicry of mercy. Yet the words' weight didn't falter despite its vague origins. With a shift in perspective he peered down at Hull.

Another voice: '_What's wrong with him?_'

'_He is in pain._'

And for a brief moment Malefor lay in Hull's place, the dark flames deep within the scales, the smoking nidor overwhelming. His own dilated eyes met his, and his jaw trembled as blood and saliva stretched down his mouth.

Malefor winced, his prior arrogance gone. "No." He shook his head. "I know that too well." He raised his gauntleted paw and closed it, snuffed out the element that ensnared Hull. The lionman, still trembling, weakly crawled away from him.

Malefor splayed his paw at Hull, the dragon's rein on the black crystals indomitable. Hull stopped against his will. Malefor rumbled, "Wait."

Cautiously, Spyro and Cynder approached Malefor, the dark dragon still in his revery. Spyro asked him quietly, "Is he restrained?"

It took Malefor a moment to answer, his mind still in a brume of thought. "Yes."

Another question piqued Spyro's curiosity. "Why did you stop?"

"Stop what?"

"The burning. You could have killed him."

Malefor tilted his head down at Hull, the lionman's breathing labored and rattled, his cheek to the ground. Airily, Malefor said, "Suppose I could have." He turned his head to Spyro. "And what good would that have done us? He's better left alive. He wields The Black Star's power, something Haedrig will be enthused about."

Cynder turned her head between Spyro and Malefor before she rested her vision on Hull. "You sure he'll obey?"

"He doesn't have a choice." Malefor gestured Hull to his feet. Shivering, Hull obeyed, his body splotched with the ground's filth. With another gesture Malefor beckoned him over. Hull lumbered to them and stopped a few steps short, his breathing slower now, posture slouched. Malefor said up to him, "You will heed everything I say, regardless of The Black Star's instructions."

Hull blinked, flickered the light from his eyes. "But you were subject to his power. You promised the cradle of fire before his stead."

"True," Malefor said. "And now I don't."

Hesitantly, Hull asked, "Why?"

Goon interjected, "'Cause he said so." Malefor and Hull turned to the feral. Goon's muzzle crinkled as he bared his teeth in a smile.

Hull asked, "Should I kill him?"

"No," Malefor said. "He's still of use. For now."

Goon bunched his shoulders up and puffed his chest out. "That's right. You heard him. What are ya gonna' do about it, huh?"

Hull's eyes narrowed into brilliant slits. "Give unto you a light to raze the the darkest refuge of your mind."

Goon breathed in deeply, his Hull-pose unwavering. "Well aren't you just the pretty little star."

Malefor snapped, "Enough!" Goon reluctantly deflated with a grunt. Malefor addressed Spyro and Cynder. "You're not opposed to this, are you?"

Spyro mulled over the idea. "We could use an ally like him, especially if The Black Star can create others."

Staidly, Malefor nodded and turned his attention back to Hull. "You will follow us for now. You are permitted to voice your thoughts, but do not stray from my orders."

Hull nodded, the light of his eyes dimmer. "My question?"

"Yes?"

Another beat of thought. "Why do you no longer wish for Avalar's burning?"

Malefor pivoted his head around at everyone, the past a glaring contrast to the present. "At one time I was their enemy. Moments ago, you were our enemy." He lowered his voice. "Did you enjoy being our enemy?"

Hull shook his head. "No."

Malefor nodded in approval. "And would your prefer to languish in what The Black Star offers? When there's a chance for something besides pain? Oblivion?" Again, Hull shook his head. Malefor went on. "Circumstance has blurred our past enmity. The world's finality isn't ours to decide, not with what we're contending with."

Hull ruminated on that, his eyes downward. "You were born to die, to take Avalar with you. Yet the world still lives. Are you still the destroyer?"

Malefor grinned wryly at that. "I'll let actions dictate the title."

Hull looked off to the side, still confused. "You will be the destroyer of The Black Star, then?" He panned his sight around at the dragons and ferals. "Are you all the destroyers?"

"Mah-ah-ah." Hull cocked his head at Raziela, the feral's hip canted, arms over her shouldered Shattersound. She said defensively to the others, "What? I was nervous! And he's creepy...With nice killing arms."

Hull turned to Malefor for answers. The dark dragon replied, "Take that as a 'yes'." The lionman languidly nodded, and with a breath he stilled, waited for Malefor's next action.

The guardians neared the dark dragon, observed Hull with an inquisitive air. Terrador asked Malefor, "How are you controlling him through the black crystals?"

With a slight breath Malefor answered. "Just as dragons resonate with red and green crystals, I resonate with my own constructs. The black crystals are in tune with me, and anyone who bears them within will be as well."

Flame and Ember padded over to them. The dragoness eased her way between Spyro and Cynder. Her paw lightly brushed Cynder's shoulder, a gesture of neutrality as she stood between them. Flame joined Spyro's side, his muscles tensed. He didn't like Ember being this close to Hull.

Ember drew a long breath, the gem in her chest brighter. "Malefor."

The dark dragon alternated his sight between Hull and Ember. "Yes?"

"I'd like to ask your minion some questions. Will he restrain himself?"

"Without question."

Ember closed her eyes and nodded. She swallowed and summoned her courage. "Why did the Aphos do this to me?"

Hull's white pupils shifted within black sclera. "Your warmth. We wanted it black."

Flame stepped forward. Ember held her paw out to him. "Flame, please." She continued her questioning. "Why?"

"You burn differently than the other fire-wielders. Insidious. Subtle. Much could be done with your ability."

Ember looked away, her muzzle furrowed and lips thinned. "I was meant to be a tool then?"

"A potentially powerful one, one to undermine the others."

With a slight effort she parted her dried lips. She turned to her left and found that Cynder shared her thoughts, the empathy between them as a slight grimace, a realization of what could have been. Ember asked Hull, "Like Cynder? Was that the intention?"

Hull did something unexpected. He turned to Malefor, silently requested his input. The dragons and ferals followed Hull's stare to Malefor. The dark dragon shied from their sight, his visage heavy. "From what I remember...I wanted another dragoness: more empathic, more tolerant to pain, one that could bear the crystals. But that was then." He strode to Hull's side, spoke to Ember and Flame. "That doesn't help with your affliction, I know, and I've yet to fully comprehend the magnitude of my deeds." The muscles of his neck tightened, his throat tense. "But that doesn't mean I'll fall into my old self. Just give me a chance, please."

Ember held her head down in thought. She parted from between Spyro and Cynder, sided herself next to Flame. They nuzzled briefly, and with an unspoken exchange she and Flame approached Malefor and sat. Ember straightened her shoulders, the gem in her chest at a slow crimson pulse. "Are you sorry?"

The question blindsided Malefor, the answer's articulation beyond him. "I...I've just now recalled it."

"Are you sorry?" She persisted like an undertow beneath calm waters.

Malefor's mouth opened and closed. "I...I wouldn't wish that on someone again."

"Why do you think this way?"

"Because Spyro spared me." The answer stole the air from him. Spyro himself lent Malefor a bewildered look, the comparison unexpected. Malefor wet his lips and continued. "That's why I stopped Hull's pain. I remember Spyro's voice when I was first resurrected. The very air stabbed me, gutted me. Hot, cold, ripping, tearing. I wanted to be dead again. He could have let me suffer for everything I did." He wanly chuckled. "Now I know what Haedrig meant, how I'd be 'in a lot more pain' if it weren't for him."

Ember's blue eyes hardened, the darker flecks like shards as she contemplated. "You put yourself in the position."

Malefor considered that. "Yes. Even if I don't fully understand it."

"And are you sorry?"

Malefor gave her a sad sigh, his paw to his brow. He tried to imagine her affliction, the pain of having her chest-plating pried at, cut at, her very innards bared to the cold, uncaring air. He remembered the growing plates from his flesh, the initial dull punch followed by a shearing pang. Hungry. Violating.

Malefor uttered, "I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry."

Ember softened then, the flecks of her eyes glazed. "That's all I wanted to hear." She turned from him to Flame, a little smile on her face as she met her mate's muzzle. Flame held her close, put his ear to her lips as she whispered something.

Flame raised his head at the dark dragon. "Malefor."

Malefor kept his voice level. "Yes?"

"Thank you for helping her." The red dragon shifted his sight to Hull. "Though you might have to apologize to Hull, too."

Startled, Malefor raised his head up at Hull, who returned the expression with his own void countenance. Malefor cleared his throat. "I'm sorry about...slitting your throat."

Hull's brow knitted, white pupils downward. "I was trying to end you. I would not have felt pity had I reciprocated the act."

"And would you now?"

"I do what you bid of me."

"But if I were to ask you, would you?"

Hull thought about that. "Would you command that I feel pity?"

Malefor silently laughed and shook his head. "It's not something I can ask you to do."

Hull shuffled his feet. Bangs of his mane obscured his eyes as he searched the mists, as if the unseen held the answer. "That is something I will have to learn again."

Malefor grunted and smirked. "Honest enough answer."

"And how can I learn it?"

Malefor grunted again. "Well. Maybe if we keep the world alive you'll find out."

The answer befuddled Hull. "But The Black Star wishes to keep the world alive."

"No. That isn't the life I speak of."

"Then what is?"

Malefor's upper lip stiffened. He curved his neck to Spyro to see if the purple dragon had an answer.

Spyro caught the unspoken request. He said to Hull, "That's a part of it. Learning. There is no learning in the life The Black Star offers. If you help us, maybe you'll learn more. Maybe even about yourself. Look at your master, at how much he's changed. The question is: do you think it's for the better?"

It didn't take long for Hull to answer. "My enemies are now allies. While I am confused, I am also intrigued."

Spyro gave him a half-shrug. "Just help us. We can't make any promises, but we can better our chances."

Hull gave Spyro a single, resolute nod. "So be it. My chances are better with you than against you."

No one dissented at that. Except Goon. "So...," the feral said as he strode to Hull and leaned a shoulder against the behemoth. "Quick bit of logic...Who's going to fly meat-boulder over here?"


	19. Chapter 19

Hull craned his head down at the feral. "My name is Hull."

"Meat-boulder," Goon corrected.

Hull turned to Malefor for reason. With a low groan Malefor said, "Ignore him. He's an idiot."

"No I'm not," Goon defended. "I asked a smart question." He looked up at Volteer. "Didn't I? _Buddy._"

Volteer rolled his eyes away, the idea of transporting Goon an exercise in sanity. Another idea displaced his initial annoyance, one that made him grin. "I can transport Hull."

Goon sputtered his lips. "No you can't. You have to carry me."

Volteer stretched his neck forward and mimicked Goon's grin. "Who says I can't transport you both?"

Goon held a finger out, his mouth open. He shut it with a clack as it donned on him. "I'm...riding with meat-boulder?" Volteer nodded, savored Goon's discomfort. The feral rolled his head up towards Hull. "You need a bath."

Hull gave him an oblique stare. "There are no free-running sources of water here."

"You still need one."

Volteer interjected, "As a matter of fact I believe you'll ride rear to Hull, use him as support. Wouldn't want you reaching terminal velocity now, would we?"

Goon frowned intensely before he regathered his sarcasm. He said up to Hull, "I'll be gentle."

Raziela approached Goon from behind and rested a hand on his shoulder. "Look at it this way, Goon."

"My head doesn't stretch down that far."

Raziela ignored the quip. "You'll get to admire his killing arms up close."

Goon jabbed a thumb at Raziela and said to Volteer, "Why don't you take red-head-heat over here?"

Raziela cooed, "No. No." She rubbed her palm against Goon's head. "I wouldn't want to deny you."

Goon muttered something incomprehensible, his arms crossed.

{{}}

The distant sound of flapping jolted Haedrig out of bed, his eyes to the door. "Sparx! They're back!"

The dragonfly waved off the mole. He mumbled, "Been here for a half-hour. Where have you been?"

"What?"

"Yeah. Just finished the giant sheep-pie."

"Sparx, you're dreaming."

"LIAR!" Sparx flew from his sleep and unsteadily hovered. "THE PIE WAS DELICIOUS!"

Haedrig disregarded Sparx's rant and strode to the door. Sparx followed as he rubbed the drowse from his eyes. "Wait, really? They brought some of that night-light mojo with them?"

"We'll see," Haedrig said as he opened the door and stepped out into the chillier outside, the fluttering grass bright against the overcast. Sparx joined him, their vision to the furrowed gray sky as the dragons closed in. The dragons' fours smoothly transitioned to the ground as they landed, as if they had just slowed from a sprint.

The guardians lowered onto their fours, allowed their passengers to climb off. Raziela, despite her size, daintily hopped off Cyril, her Shattersound once again shouldered. Haedrig squinted at the imposing figure atop Volteer, winced against the light from its eyes. He asked himself aloud, "They brought one? How?"

"Tramp-lizard," Sparx said. Haedrig lent him an incredulous stare, to which the dragonfly reeled. "What? _She does things._"

Haedrig shook his head at him before he turned back to the dragons. The imposing figure jumped off Terrador and landed with a nimbleness that belied its bulk. Much to Haedrig's surprise, Goon had ridden atop Volteer as well, the feral in an awkward clamber as he dismounted. Haedrig ambled to them while Sparx followed. The mole's mouth slackened as he neared Hull, his hand to his revolver.

Spyro and Cynder ran to Haedrig. "It's alright," Spyro said as he neared the mole. "Malefor has him under control."

"Control?" Haedrig said, bewildered. "How?"

Malefor dismounted from Terrador, took lazy steps towards Haedrig. "You're the black crystal expert. Why don't you tell me?"

Haedrig ignored Malefor's sarcasm. With a turn of his shoulder he sized up Hull. Hull returned the stare, the lionman's breathing steady, face vacant. Haedrig asked Malefor, "Were there others like him?"

"They've been dealt with." Malefor tilted his head at Goon, who sided next to the dark dragon, the feral's scales filthy. "The feral took care of one, acquired the false light. As for the lionman, his name's Hull."

"Hull," Haedrig whispered. He gave the lionman another glance. "Apt enough name."

Hull rumbled, "By vacuity or proportion?"

The eloquence caught Haedrig by surprise. "I'll say the latter." Quickly, he shifted to Goon, eyed the false light that emanated from the feral's weapon. "Curious," he said as he approached him. He stopped a few paces from Goon, fixated at the weapon's element. "Tell me something."

"Something."

"Why doesn't the element affect you?"

Goon shrugged. "Too much Goon to handle."

Haedrig dismissed the feral. His thinking trailed elsewhere. He asked them all, "Who here's been exposed The Black Star's element?"

Spyro and Cynder stepped closer. "We have," Spyro said.

"What were the effects?"

The two dragons tried to recollect the experience, the sensations murky at best. Broodingly, Spyro said, "Perdition."

Haedrig's brow creased, his head slanted. "Perdition? How?"

"All our spirit, will, inner fire...just...smothered. It wasn't physical, but mentally...it was like an implosion. It just took everything else around it with it."

Haedrig scratched his chin. He asked Cynder, "And you? Was it similar?"

With some hesitance, Cynder conceded. "Yes. Yet...There was nothing else tied to it."

"What do you mean?"

Cynder's neck bowed, her muzzle in a wry frown. "Usually it's a bad memory tied to that kind of emotion, something that pulls you down. This though...It just dragged you, dragged you past all that."

Haedrig's brow scrunched as he tried to understand. "So you were confronted with such memories?"

"Briefly. It takes you. Locks you beneath all that. We..." Cynder sighed in frustration. "So hard to explain." She thinned her lips and further pondered it. "It was like being plunged into water and having to swim back up as fast as you could. You knew that if you stayed there for too long you'd drown."

Haedrig envisioned the words, his mouth between his thumb and forefinger. He asked Spyro, "And it was like that for you?"

"Very similar. Maybe not as water, but I knew I had to come back to myself, had to pass through all that."

Haedrig pensively nodded. He turned from them and tapped his chin. "So this power takes you within yourself. The trauma in this case is like the water. The more you have the deeper you're sent."

Goon mustered an obnoxious, "Ahem." Everyone turned to him, expectant. "What? I was just clearing my throat."

Haedrig flatly stared at the feral. "You want to contribute to this?"

Goon rolled his eyes to the side. "Oh, nothing really. Just wanted to point out that you have one of the light-freaks at your disposal." He cast a thumb at Hull. "Might wanna have a heart-to-heart-_ah_." He curled his lip at the lionman. "Maybe bathe him." He rolled his head up to Raziela. "I'm sure you'll love to pet the kitty."

Raziela looked down at him with a bored expression. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Meow." Raziela blinked down at him before she smacked the back of his head. Goon returned her bored expression. "I meow you too."

Spyro pinched his brow and shook his head. "Much as I hate to say it...Goon has a point."

"Meow?"

"Mah-ah-ah?"

Spyro whirled towards them. "Stop it!" He groaned and turned to Hull, who stared in bafflement at the ferals. Spyro asked him, "How can you carry the false light without it dragging you down?"

Ponderously, Hull turned to Spyro. "Why do you wish to know?"

"Because we think we can use the false light against The Black Star, whatever he is."

Hull searched Spyro's eyes. "Your mate mentioned swimming to a surface. Rising."

"Yes?"

"I do not rise."

Spyro shifted on his paws. "What do you mean?"

"The trauma you speak of is too far above me. I have laid at the bottom for longer than I can remember. That is where I dwell. The Godeater, as he called himself to undermine my master's power, merely pushed me to the other end of my perdition, away from where I had consigned myself."

Spyro sifted through the words. "So you can wield the power because you're already there? At perdition? How does that conflict with Malefor's influence over you?"

"The Godeater took me from certainty."

"So you acted under the pretense that there was already nothing left?"

"Yes."

"So why doesn't the power take you now? You're fighting for something."

"Wrong. I only exist. Everything else is extraneous."

The landscape of Hull's mind both mesmerized and disturbed Spyro. It held only bleakness, a horizon too dark to glimpse hope, with only red stains as hints to the lionman's past. He didn't want to glimpse the nadir of his own hardships. Much red would be there. Of that he was certain.

His belly tightened as he released a small breath. "Cynder...I'm not sure if we want this."

Spyro's distress summoned her. With a quick step she held her muzzle to his. "Maybe there's another way."

He rested his cheek against hers, took in the softness of her scales. "Maybe..." He opened his eyes, his brow deeply etched. "It's just a change in direction. Like what Hull said."

"Nothing left?"

The words rung a sweet chord within him. He chuckled in disbelief. "Wait...Of course. We've been there already. We know our way out."

"See? In some ways we're no different than Hull."

Hull shifted his head between the two dragons. "You say you've reached perdition before."

Spyro turned his head up to him. "Malefor's influence is still within us. But we can control it. Let's just say that it's a different path."

Hull shook his head. "I am confused. You bear the black crystals?"

Cynder spoke in Spyro's stead. "No, but the element is still within us." She grimaced a little at the crystals embedded in Hull. "I'm not sure if it's the same with you."

A different tone tinged Hull's voice, one lost, perturbed. "Perhaps they are my tethers." His massive hand wrapped around one of the curving crystals that protruded from his chest. "Perhaps I can free myself."

Malefor bellowed, "No!" Hull obeyed, hand loose at his side. Malefor faced the lionman, an equivocal look on the dragon's face. "Not yet."

Hull peered down at the crystals that jutted from his flesh. "When?"

"If we survive, that's when. I need you to listen to me for now. You're an important part in this, whether you believe it or not."

"You speak of hope," Hull pointed out. "This is unlike the master I knew."

Malefor bobbed his head at Spyro and Cynder. "You can blame them." He did a mental assessment of the dragons' experiences with his influence, with Hull's perspective. "So if I understand this, you three created a landscape within your mind?"

Spyro nodded. "In a way."

"And you use this...," Malefor looked to Hull as well, "as a base for an inner compass?" Spyro and Cynder glanced at each other, at Hull. The three nodded in unison. Malefor angled his head up, allowed the mindset to sink in. "And for you, Hull, it was a different side of the spectrum from where you were. At the bottom." Hull gave him a delayed nod.

With a tilt of his head Malefor began to pace. "So in order for us to use this false light we'll have to see past it."

The guardians, rapt with attention, closed in on the conversation. Volteer said to Malefor, "If I may offer a suggestion..."

Volteer's voice startled Malefor. "What is it?"

The yellow dragon's eyes strayed from Malefor's. "Very peculiar, this circumstance, to be offering empirical advice on this sordid matter, but as Spyro and Cynder's tutors as well as recipients of this false light, I believe we can better facilitate the adaptation to this protean element."

Goon hollered, "Headache!"

Volteer snapped, "Shut your orifice!"

Spyro and Cynder flinched. Cynder remarked, "That's crude for you, Volteer."

"Indeed," Volteer said with a hint of shame. "No specification of which leaves a disturbing ambiguity." He shook himself of his lapse and continued. "Anyhow, I feel that we should refresh you, and Malefor may be privy, to the smaller details of elemental acquisition that rote may have regressed."

Malefor raised an eyebrow at Spyro. Spyro explained, "He's going to help us learn faster."

A mocking voice dissented, "Oh that's what he tells you." Sparx streaked towards Spyro, kept a wary distance from Malefor. "So yeah. Hi former dark bastard. Not trying to kill my brother anymore I see."

Malefor, with his eyebrow still raised, asked Spyro, "What is that?"

"That's Sparx."

A moment of silence. "Why is it talking to me?"

"I think he might like you. Or hate you."

Sparx said, "His horns are stupid."

"He likes you," Spyro said.

Malefor stilled, the raised eyebrow briefly frozen on his face. Sparx returned the expression. After a moment the dark dragon turned from the dragonfly. "Huh," he said before he came back from his bemusement. With a quick breath he turned his attention to Volteer. "I presume your tutelage better applies to those of multiple elements?"

"Anyone really," Volteer said. Terrador and Cyril sided next to him. Volteer continued, "It's fluidity of thought, only in this case you're flowing along different terrain." He addressed Spyro. "Just remember how it was when you learned with me, when you learned electricity. Not a particular emotion. But what attributes of that undefined emotion do you recall?"

Spyro's muzzle furrowed. "At the time? A jolt, like a burst of energy, except everything else around me seemed to move slower."

Volteer gestured to Terrador. "And Terrador's element. What do you recall from that?"

"Strength. Boundless. Constant, but it wasn't the same strength as fire."

Cyril slumped at that. "You were supposed to mention mine."

"That's the thing," Spyro said to Cyril, "both ice and fire burned in their own way. There's the passion aspect of fire, of course: the blood rushes, the intent focuses. Ice does something like that, but that strength comes from elsewhere."

Intrigued, Cyril lowered his head. "Where did you derive yours?"

"When I was young I didn't understand it. But...It was control. I wanted something to stop. I used ice. The emotion was raw then, but I've tied it to the blacker aspects of anger."

"Blacker?"

"Fire can be warmth or passion. Cold is an apathy for life." He rubbed his brow. To form the mental foundations to support this false light proved strenuous. "Trying to put this all together."

Volteer flinched, as if something struck him. "Spyro...I have a theory, tenuous as it may be.

"Let's hear it," Spyro said, eager to make headway.

Volteer wet his lips. "We haven't considered your other element. The dark element. Perdition." He didn't want to ask. "What drives that?"

"What you just said. Perdition. We have an idea of what Hull experienced, but I'm not sure if we can rein the false light the same way."

Hull took a step forward. "I've thought of something." He turned to Malefor. "I can inoculate them with the false light, test them. I was not given the chance to adapt. I was already an ideal host. They may still have that chance."

Malefor considered the idea. His gauntleted paw kneaded the grass before he canted his head to Spyro. "What do you think?"

Spyro blew out a breath. "We have to try something. At least we have an idea of how to adapt to it."

A moment of hesitation. Spyro walked towards Hull and sat before him, his head raised. Cynder ran to his side, her voice strident. "Are you sure about this?"

"No," Spyro admitted. "I'm not sure about anything right now. But I know nothing will cost us."

Cynder shut her eyes, detested the measure they had to take. "I'll do this with you." Spyro shook his head at her. Angrily, she persisted. "Spyro! Stop it with the heroics!"

Calmly, Spyro said, "It's not heroics. There's no point in both of us experiencing this."

"It _is_ heroics. You didn't even factor me into this."

"I don't want anything to happen to you."

"How do you think I feel?"

Malefor let out an agitated growl. "Enough!" He strode towards Hull and sat next to Spyro. "I'll test the waters." He barely hid the pang in his words. "I doubt anyone's going to shed a tear if I go belly-up."

Spyro and Cynder moved forward to desist. Malefor said to them, "There's no point in stopping me. Hull will only obey me." With that resolution he braced himself for the element. "Do it."

With a focused motion Hull cradled the side of Malefor's skull. The dragon winced as Hull pierced the scales, drew small slivers of blood. Light manifested from the lionman's knuckles and coursed towards the fingertips.

Malefor's mouth snapped open, his body rigid. Strangled sounds came from the back of his throat as the light seeped into his skull. Amber effulgence burst from his eyes, and a moaning cry escaped from him.

Hull swept his hand to his side, his head downcast at his master. Malefor dropped to his fours. His shoulders bunched as he hyperventilated, the breaths hastening.

Spyro and Cynder rushed to Malefor, their faces wrinkled with worry. Cynder shouted to Hull, "What's happening to him?"

Vacantly, Hull said, "He is overwhelmed. He has tasted The Godeater's knowledge. At this moment his mind is a maelstrom. The light will soon take him."

Spyro and Cynder kept at Malefor's side, unsure of how to help. They could only offer their presence. They didn't question their compulsion to care.

Rays of white light erupted form Malefor's eyes. He tossed his head back, maw agape as the pain wrenched a scream from him. The light flowed from his mouth: albicant blues, the blood as webbing black slivers. Abruptly, the luminescence extinguished from his mouth and eyes. He crumpled to the ground, and his body rocked as he silently wept, his head buried in his arms.

In that moment Spyro and Cynder forgot their past odium with him. They held his shoulders, and their hearts fluttered with a foreboding anxiety. Words were lost to them as they held the dark dragon, who continued to rock rhythmically, with only a few shuddering breaths to break the silence.

Gradually the rocking subsided. Malefor stilled. He stretched his gauntleted paw and curled the digits into the soil, clenched it. He rose, his head down and eyes closed. His head slightly swayed, as if in tune with some slow, distant song.

Spyro gently nudged him. "Malefor. Malefor, are you alright?"

Malefor slowed his swaying. He opened his eyes, revealed irises rimmed with bleeding light. He raised his head, lips parted as he gazed at nothing. Spryo and Cynder blenched from him. Hull allayed their concern. "He is adjusting to the light now. It will be one with him soon."

With gripping apprehension Spyro asked, "What happens then?"

"We will see."

The light around Malefor's eyes receded. Life came back into his face, acknowledgment that revealed itself as acceptance, serene yet sad. At a near whisper Malefor said, "We're the same."


	20. Chapter 20

"Same?" Spyro asked. "How?"

Malefor slackened, his eyes weary, the gauntness of his cheeks graver. "Time is what separates us. Desire. Power...Power to actualize will. We're all striving for it."

Flame and Ember could no longer watch in silence. They jogged to Malefor, curious to learn of the false light up close. Flame leaned his head forward as he studied the dark dragon. "What did you gain from that?"

Malefor sat on his haunches. His vision wandered to his raised, gauntleted paw. With a slight breath a phantasmal light drifted from between his teeth. The wisps wrapped around the gauntlet, clung to it, coalesced into creeping tendrils. He splayed his paw above the ground. The light languidly stretched from the gauntlet, its shape protean, from liquid to gas. It eventually nestled on the ground, pooled.

The grass rapidly grew, nearly reached Malefor's chest until he curled the gauntlet. The grass shivered, blackened until he splayed his paw again. As if to reach for his paw the verdure straightened, blossomed with ocher dandelions.

Malefor clenched his fist with a trembling finality. The grass shook with it, wilted and died. Another plume of white mist came from his maw. "Spyro. I don't want you to have this. I don't want any of you to have this."

Spyro stepped to him, head tilted in suspicion. "What do you mean?"

Malefor's visage denoted no intoxication of power, only desolation. "I didn't want to feel this way again."

"Malefor, you're not making sense. I need you to be clear with me."

"That's just it." Malefor turned his paw upward. White smoke manifested from the digits, misted into droplets like a glowing drizzle. "Nothing is clear. Knowledge creates choice. In choice there is tyranny."

"Malefor!" Spyro snatched Malefor's horn and brought him close. "Try and be clear. This is important."

Malefor didn't resist Spyro's grasp. The words dripped from him. "With this power Avalar could be undone."

"By The Black Star?"

"No. By me."

Everyone stilled, the words a deepening toll. Despite those words Malefor gave no inclination of doing so. He continued his threadbare breathing. "You may kill me if you wish."

Spyro turned his head to Flame, to Ember, to Cynder, to the guardians, to Haedrig and Sparx. Even the ferals shared a baffled apprehension. "Just answer me this, then." He released him and softened his voice. "With this power, could we possibly defeat The Black Star?"

Malefor's head sunk, his clenched paw against the soil. "There's a reason he has many names."

"Malefor! Yes or no!"

Malefor's shoulders bunched. With his head dipped he gazed up at Spyro, submissive. "Which one?"

Spyro's blood thickened. "What are you talking about?"

Malefor smiled wanly. "He never told me. He never told me about his defeat." He rose to his fours. Pinpoints dimly radiated from his pupils. "He never told me about his patience."

Spyro dry-swallowed, controlled his shivering. "Malefor. Don't lose yourself."

In a small voice Malefor said, "No. It's still me."

The guardians softly padded over to them. Terrador craned his head down to Malefor. "If you can indeed end the world, why do you conduct yourself in this manner?"

The light in Malefor's eyes diffused across his sclera. With a harsh breath he said, "I know what I took from you." He squeezed his eyes shut, held back his tears. "I know because he bore the sacrifice, wore the mantle of empathy to callous the spirit, only to cast it off. Until my rebirth I knew only toil. Spite. Insanity. To bear this power is to know misery, misery he hardened himself against."

Softly, Terrador asked, "Misery of whom?"

Malefor's eyes darted as the images came to him. "Different faces, flesh, minds...Yet they bore the same cut seam."

Spyro uttered, "Seam." The image of the cheetahgirl came to mind, her form hunched in a dark corner. "Malefor...Was there a little cheetahgirl in those memories? In the false light Hull gave you?" Malefor went quiet as he searched his memory. He gave Spyro a single nod. Spyro thinned his lips and turned his head away. "No more." He shook his head. "No more."

Malefor, aware of Spyro's altruism, said, "He's done this before."

"Done what?"

"Incite anger to seduce, to bear the false light."

"But why? Why would he do that?"

The answer weighed heavily upon Malefor. "To corrupt our light. Corrupt our dark. Muddle our conscience to bend us to an absolute, to the lowest of what life offers, to let us languish there until our bodies can take no more."

Everything Malefor told him went against his instinct to act, to fight, to actualize his will against The Black Star's intent. "But if what you say is true, then that means we're not the first to have done this."

"We're not. I imagine we're not the first to realize his deceit, either."

Flame encroached upon the conversation. "So The Black Star wants us to use the false light? Give us a sense of power to lower our guard?"

"Yes," Malefor replied. "I imagine he's anticipated this."

"To what he thinks will be his victory." Flame's fangs shifted within his mouth. "He's taking a risk: giving us access to this power."

"Bear in mind," Malefor said, "that while he's confronted such a scenario before, he may not be expecting it from us."

Ember joined her mate's side, her own reservations tempered with reason. "Malefor. You mentioned his patience, his defeat. Yet he stills lives. I'm wondering..." She rubbed her temple and frowned. "Wondering if we're meant to take his stead." She switched her sight to Hull. "As the destroyers."

Hull knelt before her, a gesture of neutrality. "The Godeater feels his way through this process. It is perhaps one of his few weaknesses. He relies on experience to predict the outcome. But his experience ranges across many worlds. To take his element would give us an edge to defeat him. But that would not be the final fight."

"What would be?" Ember asked. "If he's been defeated before then how is he back?"

Hull rose, the dark crystals in his broad chest aglint. "His essence transcends. Anyone who bears the false light risks being blinded."

Solemnly, Ember accepted this cold reality. "We're playing a game with him." She pivoted and stepped to her mate, her mind yoked with possibilities. "If we kill him then we may very well turn against ourselves."

Flame asked, "And our other choice?"

Ember gave him a slow shake of her head. "From what we've witnessed we're no match for him. However..." Her sight drifted across the dragons and ferals. "None of us need to be fully immersed in this light." She paused, collected the attention of everyone. "Not when there are so many of us."

No one breathed at that. Stunned, Flame said, "You can't be serious."

"I am." She spread a wing to his face, canopied it, made him focus on her. The gem in her chest flashed, briefly revealed her wing's winding vascularity. She gently folded her wing to her back. "This isn't something for a minority to bear alone. It's not fair to Spyro. It's not fair to Cynder. It's not fair to Malefor."

Malefor winced at that. "Me? Why would you consider me?"

"Because grudges can be a heavy thing to bear." She wanly chuckled at her next thought. "I'm not heartless."

The guardians looked to each other, murmured. After a moment Terrador cleared his throat. "Before we consider this we need to address what Malefor mentioned."

Malefor asked, "What was it?"

"How you and The Black Star are the same."

Malefor carefully admonished the green dragon. "I didn't mean him and I specifically. I meant all of us. The Black Star was once a man, as humans called the males. But despite the difference of flesh and blood he was still susceptible to temptation. Everyone The Black Star conquered was susceptible to it."

Malefor turned to Ember, gave her a tilt of his head. "That's why her idea has a better chance. No one here will bear more than they have to. We'll be able to guide each other, combine our perspectives while the false light is within us."

The guardians gave him quiet approval, as did the other dragons. Flame asked him, "Is there anything you can tell us now to prepare?"

Malefor bit his lower lip, head downcast. "Don't close your mind. It'll pry it open, tear it if you try to resist. I made that mistake at first." He allowed himself a deep breath. "The trauma you all experienced? How you plunged? How Hull lies at the bottom?" Raptly, everyone nodded. "There isn't always a bottom."

Flame tried to envision that. "Emotionally? Physically? What?"

"It's formless. Do not cling to absolutes while the false light is within you. They're fickle. They change with the wind or a passing thought, both which are ephemeral."

Flame absorbed the words Malefor spoke. "If that's true, then how will we keep focus?"

"Think generally. Don't be afraid to stray. We're not trying to to 'defeat' The Black Star, we're trying to keep our world from the absolute he offers. That could mean his death, our death. That could mean playing to his arrogance. It could mean intriguing him. Nothing is for certain."

Flame dissented on something. "You're considering the idea of letting him live. Is that really something we want on our conscience?"

Disconsolate, Malefor said, "I admire your passion, Flame. Keep it alight when you receive the false light. Let it burn brighter." His tone congealed into something bitter. "Insight encompasses. Don't let it snuff you."

The ferals kept themselves just in earshot, yet far enough to avoid inclusion. Still, Malefor called to them. "You two! This applies to you as well."

Goon snorted, his hands upon Double Or Nothing's horns despite the false light that coursed through it. "Yeah. _Okay._ Kitty wanna turn me into a pretty little star. Oh yay. _Not._"

Malefor sighed at them. "You won't stand a chance without this."

Goon gave the dark dragon a smug frown. "Who says we're going against him? I'm sure there'll be plenty else to kill."

Malefor fumed silently. He asked Raziela, "And you? Is that what you wish as well?"

Raziela's head alternated between Malefor, Hull, and Goon. "Whichever one annoys Goon more."

"You," Goon retorted.

Raziela nearly sided with Malefor until an idea came to her. She examined Goon's weapon, lightly chewed her lip. Goon leaned away from her, wary of her roaming eyes. "Stop staring at it."

"I have an idea."

"Keep me out of your head."

Raziela asked Hull, "Could you make my weapon like Goon's?"

The white of Hull's eyes became as glowing slits. His clawed feed thudded towards Raziela, head leaned downwards at Shattersound. Raziela didn't budge despite Hull's sheer size. Her canted hip and observant eyes expressed mild curiosity, if anything.

After some pensive silence Hull said, "I am not adept at imbuing with the false light. But I can try."

Raziela bobbed her head eagerly, held out Shattersound to Hull, who clasped it from her hands. "Be sweet to it."

Hull cocked his head at her. "Sweet?"

"_Make it your sweet little kill-cuddle._"

Hull turned to Goon for explanation, who rolled his eyes and wobbled his head. "Just enchant the damn thing."

A brief pause before Hull shifted his attention to the weapon. His veined hands bulged as he wrung the handle. "Power in this already. Pain...reverberates throughout."

"Yup," Raziela chirped. "It sings so well with me. Good highs."

Hull ignored Raziela's commentary, continued to wring his hands around the handle, find vacancy within the weapon. It came to him as miniscule pores, barely partitioned from each other, innumerable chambers of potential.

He sent a small thread of light into the weapon. It slithered around its base, sought purchase. It made its way to the blades, where it stilled, reddened, and faded into the metal. A thrum oscillated through the weapon, low at first. It rose to a moan as the vibrations intensified.

A scream sheared the air, a mimicry of Raziela's power over sound. Hull held his ground, continued to hold the weapon, his brow and muzzle furrowed, torso taut as Shattersound shook. The scream peaked and faded, and the weapon's thrum subsided. He ran his eyes across the weapon, inspected it.

Raziela's ears slumped in curiosity. "What happened? Did it work?"

Hull slid his palm across the handle. "It is done." He held the weapon out to Raziela, who snatched it from him and held it to her chest.

Giddily, she bounced on her feet. "Mah-ah-ah!"

Hull pointed at the weapon. "The false light will make itself known when you wield it. Since it is the weapon that bared the element, I cannot be certain of its effects."

Raziela bit her lip at the prospect. "Mm...Surprise kills thrill me."

The guardians, Cyril in particular, gawked at Raziela. Cyril remarked, "There's something wrong with that girl."

Malefor said, "You knew that before."

"I mean _really_ wrong. You sure it was a good idea to give her that power?"

"Yes. Then again I could question this power with any of you. But our options are dwindling." He circled his sight around at the dragons. "Who else will bear the false light?"

Spyro and Cynder stepped first. Spyro said, "We will."

Malefor nodded at them. He called to Hull, "Give them the element. Both of them at once. No gripes with heroics that way."

In a way, Malefor's acrimony comforted Spyro and Cynder; it meant the false light hadn't completely taken him. The two dragons approached Hull, reluctantly welcomed the light from his eyes. The lionman both discomforted and assured them. The power he offered exemplified a different hope, where malign intentions weren't written in stone.

They sat before Hull and bowed their heads. Hull summoned the light, its manifestation as glowing rivulets that coursed down his arms and pooled at the fingertips, rippled gently in the slow wind. He brushed his fingertips against their temples. The liquid light branched across their heads, where it stilled and faded.

The dragons' vision gradually dimmed, with Hull's eyes being the last to fade from their sight. A calm silence followed, drowned the external stimuli.

Imagery flashed across their periphery, too quick and bright to recognize, with only fleeting emotions to pair the sights with. They traveled towards a black hole, barely a pinpoint, but as the hole grew so did the small lights within its darkness, innumerable bright eyes that conjoined into a blinding sphere.

Warfang, the dragon city, surrounded them, its tall, spired, stone sepia walls splotched with brown and black, the city's innards putrefied with stretching, viscous black bands. Pulsing dim reds and oranges bubbled beneath the decomposition, burned into the city's foundation, made its way to the old ruins below: a melanoid labyrinth lit by a thousand lanterns, all of which burned with a cold, sepulchral glow.

The vision went deeper into the ruins, to pitch depths that errantly gleamed with veins of light. The glimmering spread across the expanse of black: the glisten of swift movement against the sparse light. Limbs pattered and squelched across the unseen, accompanied by a panting chorus, the breaths hastening.

All went quiet. A single, melancholy moan rose to a cacophony of wailing as eyes of false light rushed towards them.

A spot of light in the distance. The thumping of a heart punctuated footsteps as the light drew nearer. Spyro and Cynder laid on the ground, their muzzles touching in a lifeless mockup, their paws clasped against each other.

Their backs arched as their eyes and mouth erupted with light.


	21. Chapter 21

The vision reflected the reality.

Spyro and Cynder panted heavily, their bellies to the ground, alight eyes half-closed as white luminescence misted from their mouths. Malefor rushed to them, a new empathy within him that he didn't question. "Spyro! Cynder!" He grabbed Spyro's arm, lifted him to his fours before he turned to Cynder and gently eased her up. He asked them, "Are you alright? Did you fight it?"

The two dragons shook their heads, breaths still heavy. Spyro uttered, "Warfang."

"Warfang?" Malefor asked. "What about it?"

"He's there. Corrupting it."

It took a moment for Malefor to remember Spyro's gift of visions. "You think this is tied to the false light?"

Cynder answered for Spyro. "Yes."

"How are you certain?"

"Because I saw the same thing."

Attention shifted to the black dragoness, who said between slowing breaths, "Tied somehow. Couldn't see before. Not sure why."

Spyro and Cynder rose as their breathing eased. He said to his mate, "I think I might know: nothing left."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "We reached the bottom. I get that. But how am I inheriting your abilities?"

Spyro squinted in thought. "This power's not bound by anything. Perdition is the only thing that's reoccurring. That's something we share. If The Black Star can give Hull this power, and him to us, then it's possible the false light took something with it."

Cynder angled her head down as she considered that. "He had the power of darkness when we fought him. He could wield fire. Control earth..." The realizations gave her a mix of dark prospects. "I'm not sure how we could do it, but I think we could go beyond our birthright elements."

"Possible," Spyro said, "but I'm not really sure how we could make that happen, if we even should. A vision is different from wielding an element."

Goon and Raziela butted in on the conversation, stood before the dragons with an impatient air. Raziela slanted her head down at Cynder. "So hi. Love the light-eyes. Matches your scales _so well._ Could we go to the Warfang place now?"

Cynder curled her lip at her. "Why are you eager?"

"I NEED TEST-KILL!" Her hands wrung against Shattersound. "My toy got an _up_grade. I want to see how well it plays with others."

"You consider that a toy?"

"I make things squeak with it."

Cynder blinked up at the female feral. She asked Goon, "How are you still alive?"

Goon said impassively, "I don't squeak."

Cynder and Spyro stared at each other, pondered how they would keep the female feral in check. "Raziela," Cynder said, "I know you're not big on fairness, but we could kill a lot faster if the guardians get the false light. Flame and Ember too."

Raziela initially protested but thought better of it. Her vision wandered to Cyril, the ice dragon uneased by her lingering stare. He asked her, "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking the black lizard-bitch has a point. Plus it'd be nice to get a different killing perspective. Maybe Hull could show me too."

The guardians didn't enjoy being the recipient of Raziela's interest, Cyril in particular. But despite their hesitance they couldn't let the other dragons bear the false light without their help.

That didn't mean Cyril didn't detest the idea. "Right. Well...Suppose let's get this over with." He tapped his chin as a notion came to him. "Spyro, Cynder...Do you think you can give us the false light?"

Spyro and Cynder exchanged an askance look. Spyro said, "Maybe. Not sure how well we can, though there's a chance you might inherit an element. It wouldn't hurt to try." He beckoned Cynder and Malefor closer. "Terrador?"

The green dragon nodded down at Spyro. "Yes?"

"You've ridden with Malefor, are more comfortable with him than Cyril and Volteer. Would you be willing to accept the false light from him?"

Terrador's eyes flicked to Malefor, his lips parted. "He had a chance to end us. He didn't take it." He addressed Malefor directly. "You tipped the favor out of treachery's hand when you gave Spyro and Cynder this element. I am hoping that my trust in you is sound."

Malefor nodded. "It is, Terrador. Just remember everything I said. I imagine you three will be less burdened."

"Let us hope so." Terrador looked to Cyril and Volteer, lent them a wan smile. "Are you ready, old friends?"

Cyril sputtered his lips. "Stop the dramatics. It's just a little star-shine to help smack that damn ape off the face of Avalar."

"So you're telling yourself."

"Oh, vehemently so." Cyril shifted to Volteer, lightly smacked his chest. "You up for it?"

Volteer swallowed and sat on his haunches. "Wouldn't say ready. It's more like apprehensive anticipation."

"Scared?"

"Shut up, Cyril!"

Spyro grabbed their attention. "We need to do this now. Warfang doesn't have much time. I don't even know how many managed to flee."

The guardians went quiet at that. They laid on their fours, brought themselves to eye level with Spyro, Cynder, and Malefor. Spyro faced Volteer, put his paw to his temple while Cynder faced Cyril, put her paw against the ice dragon's muzzle.

After some hesitation Malefor faced Terrador, the earth dragon stoic, ready. With a heavy breath Malefor said, "Just remember: don't fight it."

Terrador smirked. "They'll be time for that later."

Malefor exhaled again and put his paw on Terrador's forehead, his gauntleted paw on the ground. He drew from the false light, his thoughts briefly whited out as he molded it to his will, concentrated it to his paw as he kept his mind empty, ensured the element's purity as it pooled against the green dragon's head.

It reddened and faded against the scales. Malefor turned to Volteer and Cyril. His heart fluttered when the guardians' heads slumped, their bodies slack. Their paws twitched, claws in the soil. They shuddered, curled as if taken by a sudden cold. Malefor released a trembling breath, questioned the alleged gift they had given.

The guardians rose to their fours, heads downcast and swaying against the new influence. They opened their eyes. Something other than the false light gleamed. Malefor reeled from them. "How...How did that get through?"

Something sunk within Spyro and Cynder, a sickening heat within their chest that threatened to drag them down. "Darkness," Spyro said. "We gave them the false light. Why do they have darkness?"

Cynder shook her head in disbelief. She said to Spyro, "They inherited it from us."

"_What?_"

The guardians raised their heads, their slit-like pupils surrounded by an albicant blue. They stared down at them, unmoving.

Spyro, Cynder, and Malefor hesitantly approached them, the three unsure as to what to say. Spyro wet his lips and asked them, "Is it still you?"

Terrador shifted his head to Spyro, the trailing light of his eyes spectral. "Yes."

Spyro swallowed, turned to Volteer and Cyril. "And you?"

Volteer and Cyril barely acknowledged him. Volteer's sight drifted to the ferals, his muzzle furrowed with rising agitation. Spyro ran to his side. "Don't focus on them. That's what it makes you do: focus on the negative, gives you strength from anger." Again, Volteer gave him no acknowledgment, continued to glare at the ferals. "Volteer! Look at me."

Volteer turned to him. His eyes coruscated with blue electricity. In a grated voice he said, "I hear you...Enlighten me..." He turned back to the ferals. "Why do I wish to break and blacken them?"

"I told you: it's the darkness doing that."

"Not. Just. That." Volteer tilted his head at the ferals, who took slow steps back. "Those are the reprobates that caused so much pain."

Cynder and Malefor intervened, sided next to Spyro. Malefor tried to assuage the lightning dragon. "They're not the real threat."

"But they are a threat." He reared towards Malefor. "As you could be. Close to being. Again."

Spyro stepped forward. "Volteer! Focus!"

"I want to." Lambent streaks of bluish white ran from Volteer's eyes, crackled with branching electricity as the combined elements arced to the dragon's markings, illuminated them. "But it's difficult with all these distractions."

Cyril spoke over the rising tension. "Come off it, Volteer! So the red feral made a stab at your mother. I'm sure he's not the first one."

Volteer pivoted towards Cyril. The electricity that coursed through him intensified as he lowered his head at the ice dragon. "You wish to deign to their level?"

The grass beneath Cyril's fours froze, the breaths of the surrounding dragons as wintry clouds. The ice dragon raised a splayed paw, and from it grew curving scythes of ice, made the moisture in the air glisten and fall like gelid glass. "And what level would that be? Why don't you stutter it for me?"

Cynder ran to them, put herself between them. "This isn't helping! You're only feeding it!"

Volteer snarled, "Says its wielder!"

Terrador whipped towards them. His fours struck the ground with quaking force, and a ubiquitous groan emanated from far beneath the soil. "_ENOUGH!_" The voice pounded the air, echoed into the distance. He shifted his head between Volteer and Cyril. "I don't like these elements within me anymore than you do, but they're not as foreign as you think."

Volteer and Cyril exchanged a confused glance. Volteer asked, "What do you mean?"

"You, Volteer. Your agitation with the ferals escalated. The darkness did that. Redirect it. Let the false light do that."

Cyril cringed. "The false light? How is that not foreign?"

Terrador sat on his haunches, his shoulders bunched as he looked away in thought. Smoky, false light drifted up from his eyes. "We've all done things we've regretted. Like you said, Volteer: 'for a cause'. Even if the end result brings happiness, it doesn't change the act. That is where the false light can mislead us, turn our good intentions against us. The darkness dives directly into our base emotions: rage, lust, sadness, feelings raw with strength. The darkness can tug. The false light can manipulate."

The light from Terrador's eyes extinguished. "But the wielder dictates the power."

Volteer and Cyril lowered their heads, and after a moment the elements faded from their eyes, receded into them as they returned to their normal forms. Volteer said softly, "I'm sorry, Terrador."

"It will be alright." Terrador approached his fellow guardians and sat before them. "Just keep focus, friends."

Cyril asked him, "Why weren't you as affected?"

Terrador gave him a wry shrug. "My element's heavier, not as easily moved. It's a common trait amongst earth elements. Probably why we're so stubborn."

Cyril muttered, "Not arguing that."

The guardians softly chuckled, a welcome descent from the prior tension. Spyro, Cynder, and Malefor released their bated breaths. Spyro said, "Okay...Since that wasn't nerve-wracking enough..." He turned to Flame and Ember. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Flame and Ember looked to each other for affirmation. Ember said, "Yes. But I think Hull should grant it."

Flame's brow knitted. "Him? Why?"

"Because the false light seems to be Hull's only element. Besides, I don't think we should inherit another power if we can't fully control it."

The intonation in Ember's voice told Flame something else. "You don't want me exposed to the darkness."

Apologetic, Ember said, "I'm afraid for you. I don't think it'd go well. Look at what happened with the guardians. It nearly took them."

Flame thinned his lips and nodded. "I understand." With a reluctant sigh he turned to Hull, the lionman's posture devoid of life. "Give me the power first."

Intrigued, Hull made slow steps towards the crimson dragon. "Why would you accept the false light from me?"

"Because I want the advantage when you grant the element to her."

Hull raised his head in comprehension. "To ensure I do not consummate my previous intentions."

Flame bit back a retort. It took all of his grace to say his next words. "She's precious to me, lionman. If you recalled anything from a previous life you might know that."

The light of Hull's eyes slightly faded as he turned his head away. "I cannot. It is too far above me."

The admittance didn't surprise Flame. He leaned his head to Ember, nuzzled her briefly before he walked to Hull and sat before him. "Make this quick."

A slight pause. Hull rumbled, "So be it." He spread his hand and rested it on Flame's head. Innumerable threads of the element manifested from his eyes, sought his arm, slithered down it and slid into the dragon's head.

Flame hissed, and a low, pained moan came from him as the element sunk in. His body trembled, and his breaths shortened as he clenched his eyes shut. Ember rushed over to him, her countenance wracked with worry.

Flame outstretched his paw to her. "No," he rasped. "I can bear this." Ember reluctantly sat, her paw to the gem in her chest as she reached for her mate. He gave a shuddering gasp, his forepaws curled. He buckled, and a rabid cry came from him as wisps of white fire manifested around his body.

Malefor ran to him, shouted, "Don't fight it!"

Flame turned his trembling head to the dark dragon, fangs bared as blinding fire burned within his eyes. "_I'm. Not._" Pillars of the white blaze erupted around his paws, his muscles taut as the false light navigated his turbulent mind. The white fire redoubled its strength, encompassed him, the dragon's body a silhouette within its refulgence, his howling guttural.

The fire died as he crumpled to the ground. Ember darted to him, cradled his face to hers. Flame's breaths came weak and slow, and his head rolled as his eyes gradually opened, burned like white embers. He slurred, "Too many. I took too many."

Ember brushed her paw against his cheek. "What do you mean?"

"Never thought about the others. Thought about my cruelty. Too blinded by anger. Passion." Sadly, he shook his head at her. "How can you be so at peace? After everything they've done?"

Ember cradled the back of his neck and kissed his forehead. "Because it's done." The words shamed the crimson dragon. He tried to turn his head away. Ember made him face her. "I said it's done." She brushed his temple. "Please don't be sad."

"But I...I was just as much of a monster."

Ember read deeper into her mate's words. "Flame."

"Yes?"

"What compelled you in the first place?"

His arm traveled to his chest, his hand to his shoulder. He clenched it, his chin down. "I didn't want anyone to suffer that. You..." He tightened his jaw as the memory came to him. "Too much red. Even after they opened you your heart still beat, struggled. And you just looked...Looked so confused, cold, wondered how anyone could be so cruel. And I thought...I thought if I ended them I'd put you at ease. Put myself at ease." He breathed in deeply as his arm fell to his side. "I never wanted to see that again."

A tear of white light flowed from his eye. "Didn't mean I had to be like them."

Ember caressed his cheek, wiped the light from his eye, allowed it to soak into her. She didn't concern herself with gaining power. She wanted to better understand her mate's plight. She brought her muzzle to his, shared his breaths. "I'll bear this with you."

Flame grimaced, his eyes shut. "I don't want you to hurt."

"We're in this together. Share this with me."

Flame shook, the element within him feverish, a heavy heat that pervaded him. He found little difficulty in manipulating it, its essence as intangible as thought. The thought, however, proved murky, and the red dragon struggled to bring it to fruition.

Ember's breath upon him triggered the element, and a luminescent haze coalesced from his mouth. The dragoness breathed it in, leaned her weight to one side as she held Flame's arm.

Flame wrapped his arm around hers, kept her from falling. The dragoness' breathing slightly hastened, yet she kept her composure, eyes only partially closed, her splayed paw at her chest's gem.

She gave a small cry as rays of light erupted from the gem: radiant white with milky rose curls. Her other paw gripped Flame tighter as the false light settled into her. A slight tremor went though her, and the air shimmered as a heat flash domed from her.

She released her grip on Flame and sat, the flecks of her eyes scintillating. Flame rose to his fours and sat in front of her. "Are you okay?"

Something between melancholy and contentment spread across her face. She canted her head up at him. A soft azure glow emanated from her eyes. "I think so."

The dragons padded over to them, circled them. Malefor asked Ember, "Why was it so easy for you?"

Ember gave the dark dragon a small grin. "I told you: a grudge can be a heavy thing to bear."

"A grudge?" Malefor asked. "So the light didn't take you down as far?"

"Nope." Content, she turned to the rest of the dragons. "I guess it's time then."

Raziela hollered, "YES!"

Goon muttered, "Nope."

"SHUT UP, GOON!"

Sparx and Haedrig approached them from a safe distance. The mole peered curiously around at the dragons, at eyes that shone with the false light. "Best that I kept my distance in retrospect. Didn't think you'd all take that risk."

Spyro said, "I don't think any of us did, but it's for the better."

Sparx flew in front of Spyro's face, inspected him. "Let's see...Still fat. Check. Stupid. Check. Purple. Check. Aside from a glow disorder it's still you."

Spyro gave him a half-frown. "I'm so glad I meet your stringent standards."

"Just barely. Need less stupid."

Spyro rolled his eyes at him. "Anyway...I don't want to say it, but we need to head to Warfang."

Raziela lilted, "N-o-o-o-o-ow!"

Spyro snapped, "Shut up for a second!"

A pause. Raziela gave him a spiteful, "Mah."

Spyro blew out a breath. "I'm not really sure what to say to you all. I'm relieved you're with me, but at the same time I'm worried. I don't know what to expect." He forced back the memory of Ignitus' burning end. "I don't want to lose anyone."

Terrador offered, "None of us do, but we've prepared the best we can."

Haedrig held up a hand. "Not quite. I have some things for you all."

Terrador asked, "What kind of things?"

"You'll see," Haedrig said before he walked back to his home. The dragons sat and waited for the mole, who after a few minutes emerged from his home with a drawstring burlap sack. The mole struggled to drag it to them.

Malefor said to Hull, "Help him." The lionman obeyed, strode to Haedrig, who flinched at the looming figure before him. He picked up the bag and scooped up the mole within his massive arm, much to the mole's displeasure.

"What do you think you're doing!"

"Helping you," Hull replied.

"I just needed help with the sack!"

Hull stopped. "Oh." He dropped Haedrig. "I didn't break you, did I?"

"Are you being sarcastic?"

"Am I supposed to be?"

Hull turned to Malefor for guidance. The dark dragon shrugged in return.

Hull said, "I don't know what that means."

Malefor slumped and sighed. "Just bring the sack to us."

"So be it." He strode over them and placed the sack before them.

Haedrig caught up to them, looked warily up at Hull. "Right...well..." He undid the sack's drawstrings, revealed glistening fractal crystals of reds and greens. "These are the best I have. I don't know if any grow in Warfang, but I highly doubt it, especially with The Black Star's presence."

The dragons nodded in admiration. Spyro said, "These will be a huge help. Thank you, Haedrig." He said to Hull, "Think you can carry them?"

Hull shifted his head to the sack. "Like air."

"Alright then," Spyro said wearily. He jumped when something entered his peripheral vision. He creeped his head to the left.

Raziela stared at him with wide eyes. Spyro said to her, "Let me guess: you _really_ want to go?"

The female feral slowly nodded. "Mm hm."

"What? No 'mah' this time?"

"No mah-ah-ah-ah for you."

"You just did."

Raziela blinked at him. She smacked his head.


	22. Chapter 22

The wind cruelly bit at them with the recurrence of a sadist. Spyro and Cynder flew close to each other, as did Flame and Ember. Malefor clung to Terrador's neck, eyes lost as he brooded over this tribulation.  
Raziela couldn't have been happier. She eagerly grinned as she hugged Cyril's neck with her left arm, her weapon beneath her belly, held within her right arm.

Normally, Goon couldn't have cared less were it not for his arms around Hull's waist. Double or Nothing around his neck gave him a degree of comfort, though the proximity of the lionman's back to his muzzle left him in a perpetual grimace.

Hull held his head lower than usual. His internal vision had sharpened, and at times he could swear that an old, sweet life graced his mind with teasing images of vibrancy: light colors that bled through a canvas of crimson.

The guardians cut through the air, their will indomitable, faces grim with resolution despite the new trials before them. Spyro and Cynder looked back at the three, smiled at them, their strength and experience a soothing presence. The two turned their heads to Flame and Ember, who flew with a responsiveness that intimated their bond. The two wished nothing but happiness and contentment for the fire dragons.

Happiness didn't make itself close right now. Contentment held darker promises.

Warfang manifested in their vision as great, tarnished pillars, its rounded peaks cratered and malformed: wounded fingers to an uncaring sky. The dragons' perspectives had shifted, the false light full of tentative visions. Success. Failure. Neither prospect held hope. They flew towards the tainted city, a stronghold that no longer held its name.

They descended. The stains of the city deepened, its streets pockmarked with sparse growths of grass, the little stone shops' windows smeared with grays and browns. The dragons landed deftly, took in the derelict surroundings of corroding rock and dying relics.

Dark red streaked everywhere, yet the sources did not make themselves known. Spyro spun around, tried to make sense of it all. "Pain." His fangs scraped against each other, the presence a threat to his sanity. "It's everywhere. What happened here?"

He breathed easier when Cynder joined his side. "Doesn't make sense," she said as her sight ran along the aftermath, the sullied buildings beyond their age. "Fighting took place here. Now there's just...shades of it."

The guardians joined them, took in the strange setting. Terrador's deep voice eased their tense chests. "We're not dealing with anything natural here, at least not to our world. From what I understand The Black Star has seen many worlds. We will witness things we won't readily understand."

Malefor, Goon, and Raziela hopped off the guardians and walked towards Spyro and Cynder. Raziela's ears perked up. "Someone's singing."

Everyone turned to her. Spyro asked her, "Singing? Where?"

Raziela's dark eyes searched the city, her lips parted. "Pretty pain."

Spyro shook his head at her. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say." She bit her bottom lip, wandered the street as she sought the voice. The dragons and Goon, curious of Raziela's search, followed the female feral, with Hull in lumbering tow. She held Shattersound across her shoulders, her arms draped over it as she uttered sweet, silent nothings, a sway in her steps as she sought the voice.

The song she sought emanated as bare echoes. Raziela quickened her pace, and the dragons, Hull, and Goon followed her, the voice louder with each step. It reverberated through the stone, sharp and sweet. Raziela hastened her pace, her head back as her lips mimed the voice, the feral in a trance.

It sang:

"_So broken  
In pieces  
My heart is so broken  
I'm puzzling..._"

Raziela sprinted, turned left at a T-section. The dragons and Goon pursued, perplexed when her footfalls ended. They turned the corner.

A svelte cheetahwoman sat next to a rotted, bleak tunnel, her long, clawed fingers to her chest as she dug into her fine fur and flesh, sang softly, her ears back as her claws slit down the center of her dress. Liquid light poured from the gash as she sang, the whites of her eyes radiant.

"_I'm so broken  
My heart is so broken  
How can, how can..._"

The wound opened, revealed a refulgent heart that pulsed with dying light, its black veins crawling across the smooth muscle. Hypnotically, Raziela joined her singing, trailed the cheetahwoman's words.

"_And I sense  
All continuity  
Has vanished away..._"

Spyro ran to the cheetahwoman, desperate to stop the self-mutilation. He reached out and grabbed her cutting hand. Tears sprung from his eyes as the cheetahwoman continued to croon. White blood ran from her wound, pooled between her legs. She clenched Spyro's hand, her shivering voice weaker as she sang the last of her requiem.

"_No bed to hold my cries  
Tears cold against the sky  
Light too bright to see my way..._"

The cheetahwoman stilled, and the light of her eyes and blood faded to an ugly black, her grip lifeless. Spyro blinked back his tears, his sadness to anger as he pivoted towards Raziela. "Is that all you could do? Sing while she died?"

The words didn't ring with Raziela, the feral still enchanted. "Pretty pain."

"_SOULS DAMN YOU!_" Spyro cocked his arm, his clenched paw shrouded with bruised fire as his eyes flashed with the tell-tale blue light of darkness. Raziela flinched, eyes wide with genuine fright. Spyro turned his head away and extinguished the fire. He pinched his brow, squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to abate his fury.

Cynder sided next to him, whispered, "Nothing left," as she rubbed his back. Spyro's ire receded, and a slight tremor went through him as he swallowed back his detest.

With a heavy turn of his head he locked eyes with Raziela. "You're capable of love. I can tell by the way you spoke of your father."

Raziela stuttered, "That...That's different!"

"Put your father's face on your next victim and tell me that."

Raziela's ears lowered, and her eyes watered as her hands nervously wrung Shattersound. "But...that isn't fair!"

"I'm sure the cheetahmen you slaughtered sympathized."

Subconsciously, everyone but Cynder took a small step away from Spyro, the dragon's intensity as a rasped blade. Grating. Cutting.

Raziela sniffled. "You didn't have to put it like that."

"I did. And if you don't help us then your father may wind up like them."

Raziela forgot about her battle prowess as her mind receded to frightened petulance. "_Don't say that about daddy!_"

"Then show some compassion. Save the bloodlust for The Black Star."

Raziela composed herself, stood her weapon to her side. "Fine. I'll do that." She returned his sharp voice. "Don't ever talk about daddy like that again."

Spyro didn't bother with arguing. "Fine." He shifted his sight to Goon. "Goon?" Goon didn't answer, the feral's gaze fixed on the pitch-black tunnel before them. Spyro shouted, "Goon!"

Goon raised a finger. "Wait." He pointed at Raziela. "Bitch hears something."

Spyro inwardly questioned the feral until he noticed Raziela's raised ears. The sound came shortly after: drenched growling that undulated from within the tunnel's depths.

Cynder said, "That sound...We heard it when The Black Star was nearby."

Hull's glowing eyes scrutinized the tunnel's entrance, his head at a slow teeter. "They follow him."

"They?" Cynder asked.

Hull mentally sifted through the meanings. "Shades: the fledgeling thieves, liars, murderers." His nostrils flared, and his muzzle wrinkled. "They're feeding."

The dragons' and ferals' throats dried as an eldritch chill embraced them. They tried not to look at the dead and blackened cheetahwoman, her frozen visage lost. The guardians approached the tunnel, steps firm and slow against their fear.

The rest of the group followed. Malefor asked the guardians, "Are you certain you want to lead?"

"Yes," Terrador said. He minded Spyro's loss of Ignitus. "It's not just our affections driving this. Cyril and I can form physical barriers, give you all time to react."

"You said 'physical'," Malefor pointed out. "We really don't know what's in there."

The guardians stopped at the lip of the tunnel. Their nostrils wide as they took in the nidor, the cloying decomposition. "True," Terrador said. "But as guardians we'd like to maintain our name."

Spyro reached deep into himself, hoisted his spirit. He didn't want to lose any of them. He forced himself to follow, stifled his foreboding. The power he held saved worlds, yet lay dormant until its time of need.

The false light created a variable that terrified him.

The smack and squelch of the tunnel multiplied as they entered, created echoes akin to chewing, to fangs that clenched and pulled raw meat and tendon. The dragons and ferals stopped for a moment, ensured the sound's source. The growling ceased. Silence. Volteer flicked his paw up, and a pulsating, blue globe of electricity hovered above them. A quick hiss followed from behind him.

Ember summoned a serpent of rose fire that neared the globe, circled around it in figure-eights. The two elements cast a vermillion, flowing light upon the cimmerian tunnel, lent them a small comfort.

The wet, hungry noise restarted. Quietly, Spyro asked from behind Terrador, "Where is that coming from?"

Terrador shook his head. "I don't know." He raised his head up at a dimly lit anomaly in the distance: a stone, stained corridor paned with black metal. "It sounds closer, but I don't see anything."

Goon said from behind them, "Must have been Raziela's stomach." Still dejected, Raziela said nothing. Goon pouted up at her. "It pains me to see you sad."

"No it doesn't," she said.

"Called it."

The guardians halted. A sharp gasp came from them. Spyro asked, "What is it?"

The ensuing sounds answered. The growling came again, thrummed through the looming corridor. The dragons', ferals', and Hull's footfalls echoed with it, and as they drew closer a shadowed, quadruped creature came into view.

Its wiry haunches flexed, its shoulder blades sharp against the skin as it hunched over. Another sound came after: incoherent murmuring replaced with a hollow crunch.

Volteer's and Ember's elements hovered closer, threw off the shadows that obscured the creature. Below it lay a still, shivering torso of a cheetahman, amber eyes wide before the creature's paw scooped under it, brought him to its maw: a parting curtain of teeth that opened and engulfed the flesh. Liquid red streaked down its fangs. Its two proboscises rose, probed the air with a languid movement as it turned towards the group.

The nape of its neck to its head resembled a makeshift ribcage, its eyes wrinkled shut, its torso patched with flesh, revealed the smooth muscle that churned with its recent feeding. It stilled for a moment, and with a wet roar it wrenched its neck back, displayed its curtain of teeth. It opened its vertical mouth, and from it came rays of the false light.

The guardians turned their heads away from the effulgence. The creature scuttled towards them. Cyril's claws clenched the stone, sent strips of spiked ice that grew as it neared the beast. It veered only for the glacial barrier to spread and bar its path.

With a piercing shriek a blast of light erupted from it, melted the barrier. Volteer called forth both his lightning and darkness, cast a jagged azure column of the combined elements at the creature, flung it violently across the ground. The guardians advanced, intent to finish the beast.

They approached its thrashing body, clawed limbs and feelers flailing as flares of false light came from it. Terrador brought down a clenched paw, caved its skull in. False light and ichor spread from its crushed head.

Goon and Raziela wound around the dragons to get a better look. Goon remarked, "That was easy."

A series of guttural screams ripped through the air, its origins within the distant obscurity of the corridor. The guardians backpedaled as quick, innumerable steps intensified towards them. The dead creature's kin stood before them, their feelers sampling the fetid air. They wandered towards their fallen kin, and their proboscises swarmed over it.

They stilled. With feral hunger their maws descended upon the corpse, devoured it within seconds in a dark blur of sinew and flesh. Only a glistening stain remained as the creatures faced the dragons and ferals. Their heads convulsed as they raised their maws, the curtains of teeth alight with false light.

Goon frowned wryly, lower lip protruded. "Irony needs new material."


	23. Chapter 23

None lingered over the teeming beasts. Terrador spread his stance, drew from the earth. False light burst from his fours, and at the speed of thought burrowed into the stonework and soil, exhumed and shaped it into a serrated barricade that jutted from the ground, wrenched the metal framework with a squealing groan.

A line of the beasts couldn't halt in time, their bodies impaled and threshed upon the fence of stone pikes, their scrabbling limbs desperate to dislodge themselves. Their kin climbed over them, desperate for the dragons while other beasts wrenched the impaled from their slow deaths and devoured them.

Volteer's and Ember's elements detached from each other, the rose-fire serpent and electrical orb more than a light source. Rays of the false light shined from the elements as they sped towards the creatures. A crackling clash of electricity and fire swept through the abominations, their pained and angry cries shrill as the serpent left cauterizing holes through them, the orb a whirling storm of bolts that knocked back those in its wake.

The rest of the dragons, ferals, and Hull entered the fray. Spyro reared his arm, summoned the false light, used his prior anger with Raziela as fuel, redirected it. The element grew into a blinding star, a peculiar ringing from it as he charged it. He unleashed it at a lunging beast. The star overwhelmed it, whited it out from existence, passed through it and continued its straight path, obliterated an entire line before it shrunk and faded.

Cynder summoned her pure darkness: piceous, wispy energy combined with the false light, the effect like refracting moonlight through midnight waters. Her form flickered through the creatures, silently severed feelers and extremities alike, the leaking limbs bright with blood and light.

Malefor tapped into his own darkness, into the false light. Bruised fire and threads of pure lambency grew from his back, became as faux wings that levitated him above the fray. Familiar exhilaration coursed through him, the mimicry of flight an opiate. False light bled from his scales and mingled with the dark energy as he curled his body, trembling arms taut as he powered his assault.

He let it loose in surges, the elements shaped as phantasmal drakes that dove towards the beasts, plowed into them with concussive force, drove them further into the tunnel, their bodies mangled with each ethereal blow.

Goon, Raziela, and Hull turned their lethal intent to the escaping stragglers, the ones who fled the elemental bedlam. Hull strode towards an oncoming beast, its proboscises aimed for his chest. The lionman seized the feelers, tore them from the creature, left only its hemorrhaging maw. Glimmers of the false light shone from its gullet, and its mouth curved over the lionman to engulf him.

Hull caught the top of its mouth, and his other clenched hand shattered its teeth as he reached down its throat, ignored the creature's convulsive struggles as it bit at his bulging forearm, bled blood and light from his skin. The lionman clenched harder, stoic against the pain, and with a push-pull motion yanked its throat out. He slammed the creature's head to the ground and stomped its skull in.

Three of the straggling beasts converged upon Goon, the feral disgruntled by the attack. He skidded back and darted off angle. "Figures I get three." One of the creatures rolled its maw down upon the feral. Goon sidestepped and sunk the horns into its bastardized muzzle, climbed onto its head and latched onto its ribcage-neck. The light from his weapon became as a streaking glow as he rapidly stabbed the gray muscle beneath.

The creature bucked and buckled before the onslaught. Goon ran down its back and sprang to the next beast, reared the horns back and sank them between its torso's ribs. He slid the weapon down its side and twisted it. The talons of his feet sunk into the creature's belly, the flesh as a hold as he ripped his weapon out and swung himself forward, his body bowed as he arched and reached back over his head, sank the horns into the creature's other side only to have his chest exposed to another charging monstrosity.

Goon's eyes bulged. His clawed hand grasped the flesh of his wounded enemy. He dislodged his weapon, swung himself sideways away from the attacking beast's path, who barreled into his own kin. The feral kicked off the creature and landed. His smugness returned. "You can have him back."

A white glimmer manifested from behind the two entangled beasts, and a stentorian, screeching roar overtook the corridor, the two creatures mutilated in a great spray of luminescent blood and giblets. Goon covered himself as the wave of gore came at him.

He cringed as Raziela sashayed out of the aftermath, her face rictal, her ears and quills raised, her glowing Shattersound to her side. She still had her deranged smile when she neared Goon. "_Did you see what I did?"_"

Goon frowned up at her and flicked a piece of meat off his shoulder. "No sense of style." He tilted his head to the side, looked past Raziela. "Someone wants your tail."

The mania drained from her face. "What?"

A creature's maw nearly met her head until Flame tackled it onto its back, his sinuous form alight with white, writhing fire. It tried to push itself out from underneath the dragon only to have chunks of its torso burned from it, the raging blows to its head as the dragon's blazing swipes tore sections from its skull, left blackened lacerations that crinkled with ember-white.

Another beast vaulted towards Flame, to which Goon called, "Hey! There's one—"

Flame pivoted towards his attacker. A column of white fire roared forth from his maw, consumed the creature in its eradicating essence.

Goon slumped. "Behind you."

The group surveyed the corridor, its stone and metal warped, charred, and smoking, devoid of anymore threats. They gathered together, theirs sights set on the black square in the distance, their labored breathing the only sound within the gloomy interior.

Spyro took a few steps forward. Apprehensively, his eyes flicked about. "I want to say that was too easy, but we're also wielding the false light." He shook his head. "I don't want to play into his hands."

Cynder went to his side. "We won't know unless we go further."

"That's what bothers me. This seems too direct—"

"Uh..." Goon raised his finger again.

Spyro sucked his teeth. "What is it..." His jaw slackened.

Several new corridors revealed themselves behind the group, irregularly shaped within the hall's walls, the exit stretched impossibly far: a small, murky square in the distance. The group turned back around. In the straightaway's stead gaped a smaller hole with red, smearing words above it:

NOTHING IS SACRED

Goon glowered up at the message. "Well that's completely natural."

They took a step back from the hole, weighed the risks. "Terrador," Spyro said, "there's no way you three can fit in there."

Terrador's brow furrowed. "Not yet." Chunks of stone ripped from the ground and wrapped around his arm, formed a levitating whip of spiked spheres. He sprinted forth and slung the whip over his head, summoned the false light and darkness to augment the earthen weapon. The powers twined, shimmered the air as the whip hissed towards the hole-wall.

The weapon shattered upon the stone. The backlash of the force sent a shock wave that skidded the earth dragon back. He shook off the initial daze, his lip curled. "What is this?"

Spyro, Cynder, and Malefor gave each other a knowing glance. "Terrador," Spyro said reluctantly, "we can fit in there."

It donned on the earth dragon. "You three..." He turned to them, the revelation a millstone upon his sense of duty. "He wants you three."

Spyro solemnly nodded. "I think so. We were his initial interest."

Volteer and Cyril stepped forward, unwilling to yield. "Nonsense!" Cyril said. "That was just Terrador's power. What if we all combined our strength?"

"I don't know," Spyro said. "Terrador hit that with everything he had. We _all_ felt that."

Raziela said in awe, "I _tasted_ that."

"Right," Spyro said with uncertainty. "Regardless, The Black Star knows we're here. He wants us in particular. We might be able to talk to him, find another to way to save Avalar.

Volteer gnashed his teeth. "But he already tried that! He wanted you to devour the ferals. Are you going to stoop to that?"

"No," Spyro assured them. "But we have to venture as many other options as we can."

Volteer rocked his head, the options bleak to him. "This is not an endeavor for you three to bear alone."

"I don't think it's our choice." Spyro sighed, his chest heavy. "But things are different now. Cynder and I helped bring an entire planet back together. Malefor possessed the power to destroy one. And now we have the false light." He let that prospect alleviate their worry. "There's more potential between us three than he realizes."

Flame and Ember padded over to them, sat before Spyro. Flame offered, "We could go with you." He tilted his head at the hole. "We can fit in there."

Spyro thinned his lips as he considered that. "That is true, though at this point he's aware of you two as well." He eyed the numerous, branching corridors around them. "I'm not sure what the point of those are though."

Goon interjected. "Well, the exit's gone, so I'd say the random labyrinth is a bit disconcerting. You know, for _morale._"

"Not really," Raziela said. "I'm sure there's plenty of..." She cleared her throat. "_Work_ to do in finding that exit."

Goon groaned. "Freak forever."

"I accept my perfections."

Spyro blew out a breath, gave a lax shake of his head at the ferals. "Maybe you two and the guardians can find a way through the corridors. Maybe find us. In the meantime I think we're left with no other choice."

The guardians detested the notion of leaving Spyro, but didn't argue further. Terrador exhaled slowly. "Alright. We'll try and find our way back to you."

"Don't stay if you don't have to." Spyro's stare lingered on the guardians. "I know you want to live up to your name, but I don't want to lose anyone else. Understand?" The guardians hesitated to answer. Spyro pressed them. "_Promise me._"

Another meditative moment. Imperceptibly, the guardians nodded, their faces stricken. Spyro gave them a wan smile. "Thank you." He straightened his shoulders, honed his eyes at the constricting hole before him. Cynder and Malefor joined his side, as did Flame and Ember.

Raziela and Goon wandered to the guardians and stood next to them. Raziela shouted, "Have fun!"

Goon, with his hands on his neck-hung Double or Nothing, muttered, "Ta ta."

Spyro gave the ferals a quick eyebrow raise. He turned to Hull, the lionman in still thought. "What about you, Hull? What do you want to do?"

Hull canted his head down at the dragons. "That decision lies with my master." He turned to Malefor. "What do you wish of me?"

Malefor's answer came quickly. "Go with the guardians and ferals. Aid them."

"And if you perish?"

"Well," Malefor said with a weary acceptance, "then I suppose you're free."

Hull's eyelids tensed, the idea of freedom farfetched yet promising. He gave his master a resolute nod. "It shall be done. I will rend those who wish harm upon them."

Goon said, "I'm sure you will."

"Or themselves," Hull added. Goon's muzzle crinkled in discomfort.

Malefor blinked in surprise. "Was that sarcasm, Hull?"

"Was it mean to be?"

Malefor didn't bother to answer. "I'll let you decide that." He directed his next words at the guardians. "Thank you for your kindness. I know it isn't warranted, but...It means much to me."

The guardians warmly grinned at the former dark master. Terrador said, "You've changed much, Malefor. I am happy to have known this side of you."

"Agreed!" Cyril said. He added sarcastically, "I wish more villains were like you."

"Indeed," Volteer said. "Much less angst and bloodshed that way."

Malefor gave them a small chuckle, his sad eyes downcast. "Be well," he told them. With a sinking burden he stepped towards the hole. Spyro, Cynder, Flame, and Ember followed him. They stopped short of the abyssal path, peered into its melanoid depths, its breath hot, humid with canker, oppressive.  
Malefor closed his eyes and raised his head, swallowed. The words came airily. "Nothing left."


	24. Chapter 24

The clicking of claws crept down the hole, the path a slow descent. Ember's rose-fire serpent traveled ahead of them, yet its luminescence paled against the surrounding darkness, the confining tunnel slick, the subtle scent of infection everywhere.

Spyro and Cynder walked behind the rose-fire serpent. Malefor tailed them while Flame and Ember followed close by. Malefor kept his sight down, stared at his steps, noted the metal clink of his gauntlet, thick flesh of his paw: a broken, hard-soft rhythm to their descent.

Ember nudged Flame, raised her head at the dark dragon. Flame gave her an inquisitive look as she tilted her head at Malefor again. It took him a moment to understand her gesture.

Flame asked Malefor, "How are you holding up?"

The question shocked Malefor out of his dreary stupor. "I wish I knew for certain. To think in absolutes terrifies me right now."

Ember said, "You walk as if this is a death sentence."

Malefor stopped at that, his head lower. He sat on his haunches, shoulder blades sharp from his back. Concerned, Spyro and Cynder turned to the dark dragon. Spyro said, "You're not alone, Malefor. We're together in this."

Malefor swayed his head, his voice hoarse. "I know. That's what disturbs me."

Spyro read deeper into the words. "You don't want to lose any of us."

"It's not just that." He sighed, momentarily wordless as the reality sunk into him. "For once in my life I'm not hated. Now that life may be at an end."

"You can't think like that," Spyro said. He neared Malefor, sat before him, as did Cynder. "Dreading what could be is a waste. We need to take control of now, uncertain as that is."

Malefor winced at that. Sternly, Spyro said, "Look at me."

With a heaving sigh the dark dragon raised his head up, throat exposed. "There's much that burdens me, Spyro."

"Your past?"

"...Yes."

"It's done with."

"It's still there." Malefor rose to his fours, vision to the wet, cavernous wall. "There's something I need to say to you, all of you, before we go any further."

The dragons huddled closer, sat before Malefor. Spyro nodded to him. "Go on."

Malefor's lips thinned, his chest tense. He turned to them, his breath slow with his words. "I've already expressed my guilt over Ember's plight, over Flame's. I don't know you two very well, but the longer I'm around you the more I appreciate what I took for granted."

Softly, Ember asked. "What was it?"

"Living. Not just my life but the lives of others." His sentiment wandered to Spyro and Cynder. "Only two years after defeating me and you're ready to fight for it again, to risk losing it even while the very world lies in your debt."

He slanted his head up at Cynder, his brow furrowed with regret. "What I did to you is unforgivable. I took the most malleable moments of your life, made you into a monster, a servant. In many ways I was just as cruel as The Black Star: breaking the spirit to prolong the pain. Yet even after all that you show concern for me. You could have returned my cruelty in full."

His amber eyes glowed, moistened. "But you didn't. Neither of you did. And I just want to let you both know that I'm not ungrateful. I will do everything I can to ensure that you two get the respite you deserve, what you are owed."

Spyro and Cynder studied Malefor's eyes, mouths parted and brows raised. Spyro said, "Malefor. None of us are entitled to anything. We do this because it needs to be done, because we're Avalar's protection. As for you, it's like I said: cruelty begets cruelty. I don't want to continue that cycle. I don't think any of us do considering what you're capable of now."

He reached out and squeezed Malefor's shoulder. The lids of his eyes crinkled as he smiled. "You're amongst friends now."

Malefor's breath left him, head flushed with warmth. "What did you just call yourselves?"

Cynder stepped towards Malefor, shared Spyro's smile. "Friends, Malefor." She chuckled at him. "Hard of hearing?"

"I..." He frowned, eyes wider as the words' impact deepened. "I don't deserve that title."

Spyro huffed a laugh. "It's not your say. You're outnumbered two to one."

Ember said, "Four to one." She raised her head up at her mate, who conceded with a grin.

"She's right," Flame said. "Never thought it would happen, but I was wrong about you. Can't say I regret it."

Overwhelmed, Malefor turned away from them, eyes thin with rumination. "I don't know what to say. The only thing I can offer you all is my power, my loyalty." Every face around him bore a kind air, an acceptance that inexplicably rattled him, yet he couldn't help but return the smile. He admitted, "I'm not used to smiling like this."

Spyro laughed and gave his shoulder another squeeze. "You'll get more time to practice." He glanced at the rose-fire serpent while it idled in figure-eights. He released the dark dragon, his smile to a frown. "We need to keep moving. Watch the walls." He ran his sight along the pitch, glimmering tunnel. "I don't trust them."

With that warning he continued his treading, the dragons in tandem as they ventured further. The rose-fire serpent lazily corkscrewed along, fluid in its movements. Anxiety crept through them the more they walked, further parted from the surface.

A deep, distant horn sounded from far within the tunnel. They stopped, breaths seized in their lungs as it groaned. The horn ceased, and with some hesitance they moved on.

The horn sounded again, louder this time, its semblance sepulchral. The dragons slowed their steps but didn't stop. Again it came, throatier, closer. The rose-fire serpent corkscrewed faster as they migrated further, the horn's pacing quicker, less drawn.

The rose-fire serpent stopped and shivered midair. It curled in on itself, faded. Spyro turned to Ember. "What's happening? Why's it fading?"

Ember's brow creased, lips parted in confusion. "I don't know. I had it controlled I—" The serpent died out, left them in darkness, in palpable silence. An agonized sob emanated nearby, proliferated into countless moans.

The cacophony stopped.

Glaring light flooded the tunnel. White, teeming faces of lost races stretched forth from the wall with hands and paws that wildly groped, their gaping eyes hollow, their mouths stretched as they cried and murmured for the dragons, who huddled to the center of the blinding path.

They overcame their fear, summoned their elements, only for the illusory phenomenon to vanish, left them lost in obscurity as their rattling breaths fed the tunnel's vastness.

Five dim lights flickered to life before them: ever-small stars above five branching tunnels of mottled tendons. The dragons approached them, observed them from left to right.

Above the first tunnel hung a small mockup of a lean amethyst dragon with golden horns, plating, and fins. The dragons gasped as it came to life and silently screamed, struggled and slumped against its clasp-bound wrists and ankles.

Above the second tunnel hung a small mockup of a lithe black dragoness suspended against a circular, layered tablet of clawed metal hands. The dragoness weakly writhed, its cries muted as the hands picked and scratched at her.

Above the third tunnel hung a small mockup of a larger purple dragon, his crown of marrow horns heavy upon his downcast visage. His torso feebly arched and stretched against a tablet of pockmarked steel, his arms and legs bound by rust-ridden cords.

Above the fourth tunnel hung a small mockup of a pink supine dragoness upon an altar. Her legs kicked, arms bound as her head hung off the edge. A tiny gem in her chest flashed bright red before the color washed from it, faded to black.

Above the fifth tunnel hung a small mockup of a bulky crimson dragon imprisoned within an oblong, beating chamber of translucent flesh. The dragon paced back and forth, leaped to the left of the chamber, desperately pawed at the flesh as it voicelessly cried out to the fourth mockup.

"This..." Spyro wet the roof of his mouth, the air thin. "Cynder, the first three are from my dream."

Cynder's mind waded through the murk of fear. "You mean your vision."

"I don't know what it is." Spyro turned to the fourth and fifth mockups. "Flame, Ember...I think those are of you."

Flame and Ember fixed their sight on Spyro, shifted it to the mockups. "How..." Flame shook his head up at the displays. "How does he know? How could he?"

"I don't know," Spyro said. "He may have learned of Ember's plight through Hull, when he gave the false light to him."

Stricken, Ember stared up at her mockup, her wings slack. "Why is he so cruel?"

Again, Spyro couldn't offer an explanation. "I imagine that we're no more than insects to him. Bottom-feeders. No sympathy for them."

Ember winced at that. "Insects don't talk. Don't have emotions, don't cry out when you hurt them. It takes a monster to make a mockup of..." She turned her sight from the dioramas, eyes tensed shut. Flame leaned over to her, held her close and kissed her forehead.

Spyro didn't want to voice his thoughts. "These are here for a reason."

Malefor, fixated on his mockup, said, "One for each of us."

Flame darted his head to Malefor, his arm tighter around Ember, his hard features cowled in shadow. "I'm not leaving her."

Malefor didn't argue with him. He decided to demonstrate his point. He alternated his sight between the five tunnels until he decided on Cynder's. With resolute steps he approached the dark dragoness' path.

The star above it flashed. Malefor reeled onto his back, screamed as unseen hands clawed and tore at him, left slashes and punctures that wept with blood. The attack stopped, left him shaking. Spyro and Cynder rushed to him, helped him to his fours. Cynder berated, "Did you have to prove your point like that?"

Malefor nodded as he breathed through his nose. "I suspected as much. I didn't want any of you to go through it."

Flame and Ember neared Malefor's side, the dragoness' paw curled to her chest. "I wish you hadn't done that."

A weak laugh came from Malefor. "Better me than you all."

Spyro snapped, "Stop thinking like that. All of us need to make it through this. You're cared for, Malefor, even if said care is new."

A sickly smile spread across Malefor's muzzle. "Suppose that's something to fight for." He gazed up at the mockups, sagged at the inevitability. "We should part."

None of them wanted to move, their body heat a safeguard against the paths before them, a shared unity. Spyro and Cynder embraced and nuzzled, shared sweet and soft nothings. Flame sat and wrapped his arms around Ember, encompassed her within his wings.

Malefor focused on his mockup, on his diminutive, struggling form: a little black shadow, almost toy-like in its repetitive movements. He tried to disconnect himself from it. He flinched as the calloused padding of paws curled upon his shoulders and back.

His vision flicked between the four dragons, wordless to the combined embraces. Every part of him dedicated himself to the memory of it: the tepid breaths upon his scales that rivaled the dry, pleasing heat of a gentle touch. It encompassed him in its security, briefly took him from the shades, someplace lighter, cooler, pure, where his heart didn't beat against the yoke of his past.

They separated from him, gave him parting miens of clemency that abated the burden of his spirit. He forced himself not to reach after them as they faced their mates, their countenances suddenly older, etched with both weariness and hope, slackened by the pull of longing and push of obligation.

With another force of will they vanished behind their corresponding tunnels. Malefor steeled himself, centered his vision on his diorama. "Nothing left." He shook his head at the little figurine that struggled and arched in its bounds. "Not anymore."

He strode into the gloom, scales still warm with gentle touches.

{{}}

Spyro barely kept his footing as the descent sharpened, threatened to plummet him down. Every sound he created rolled down the passage, gave reverberating alarm to his presence. He summoned a small electrical orb, though its light did little to illuminate the path.

He kept the element with him, the orb obsequious to his progress. The length of the descent eschewed time, made him question his every step. What slight of turn had he neglected to notice? What degree of meandering did the path indulge? The Black Star manipulated the physical laws of worlds, of spirits. Then again, so did he.

He feared the clash of their combined chaos.

He breathed easier as the path leveled, the orb still with him as it gave light to the many thatched threads that stretched like blackened sinew, the substance infirm against his fours. A rush of lukewarm air swept past him, carried a nidor that made his stomach churn with both detest and hunger.

The tunnel stopped, ended at a frayed hole in the floor that rhythmically bellowed breaths of the pungent, savory scent. The electrical orb hovered into it, gave him illumination to see how far down it stretched.

Utter darkness lied in wait.

He struggled for clarity against the deepening insanity, its presence thick against cognizance's reach. He moved the orb from left to right, gauged the distance necessary to spread his wings and hover down.

Just enough space. Suspicion whispered about his thoughts, told him of deceits beyond coincidence. He ignored them, and with a deep breath plunged himself into the hole, the orb in close pursuit. He spread his wings with an echoing crack and descended in slow circles. The orb circled with him, revealed only a few paces in advance.

A startled gasp came from him as holes puckered open within the walls: pairs of hollows with stretching slits that vanished as soon as they appeared, glimpsed him like otherworldly stalkers. The peeked at him ever so often, their presence marked by the barely audible stretch of flesh.

A part of him wanted to lash out, to tame the madness through force, yet the expenditure wouldn't guarantee anything. Besides, he had further trials ahead of him.

The orb stopped a few paces below, nestled itself. Ground lied in wait for him. He swooped around, folded his wings and softly landed. The barest of illumination awaited him from beyond, the deepest of blue swathed with black. He ambled into a great round chamber, his purple scales aglow before the ubiquitous blue light that dimly palpitated from the fleshy wall.

He cast his sight up. Stars glimmered above him, specks amongst the ever-reaching ebon. Familiar foreboding pervaded him, chilled him despite the unclean sultriness of the chamber.

The stars. He couldn't take his sight from them. They captivated him, lured him. He said aloud, "Where are you?" The stars continued to glimmer as the dark light wavered.

He tore his vision from them, rested it on the sparsely lit ground. He walked along the wall, searched for an aperture, something to indicate further progression through this column of a room. The search yielded nothing except the sporadic squelches of flesh around him, the otherworldly stalkers hidden within folds of dimness.

He hissed in frustration, in unease, uncertain as to what this place required of him. In his anxiety he exhaled a quick gout of fire at the flesh. The room filled with its glare before it receded into darkness, yet the blackened spot continued to burn. The meat of the wall swelled as the fire seeped into it.

The blue palpitating light brightened with an inner burning that diffused throughout the wall's innards, bathed him in an albicant glow. The stars above him smeared, ran in rivulets down the enclosure, dripped with liquid light that pattered on the floor's skin,

The light drizzled down as misty radiance, a whiteout within the bruised darkness as the droplets tingled his scales. He covered himself against the drizzling lambency, his intent befuddled by the unnatural light-fall that pooled beneath his paws yet did not seep into him.

He uncovered his eyes only to avert them from the blinding ground. He looked up again. Void. Down. Light. To the wall.

Pinpoints. Everywhere. They grew brighter as the pool of light beneath him faded. The image of the dead cheetahwoman flashed through his mind, and a chorus of breaths issued from the tumescent wall like sickly blackened lungs.

Spyro whirled around, took a desperate hold of his sanity. "Who are you? What are you?"

A warbled thrum spread throughout the room, a murmur of many intonations that oscillated against each other, vied for first words. The first voices spoke with a dolorous rasp.

"_Give yourself.  
Faith falters before time.  
Time cradles our death._"

Oblong bodies pressed against the soft wall with hands and paws and extremities of unknown origin, the mouths of their muzzles and faces agape. The next voice grated the air with its depth, its harshness.

"_The darkest star consumes us.  
The barbed hope pulls.  
The millstone stills._"

He backpedaled to the center of the room. His sight darted from one abomination to the next, couldn't make sense of the creatures. Some walked on two legs while others walked on four. Some possessed extra appendages while others slithered and crawled.

All bore pinpoint eyes. All bore protean, melanoid flesh.

He screamed, "What are you?" as they surrounded him, bodies incapable of stillness. They trembled, swayed, rocked.

The voices combined as one.

"_We are the failed martyrs.  
We are the forsaken._"

They tossed their heads up, their cry mournful, abandoned.

"_WE ARE PERDITION._"

He murmured the words, "Failed martyrs...Forsaken." The concept of perdition rung with him, rung with these damned creatures. Martyrs...

Something snuffed out within him, left a cold, little hollow in his soul. "You all..." He didn't want to accept the truth of this nightmare. "You couldn't save your worlds."

They lowered their heads at him, the stars within their sockets.

"_The fall is at life's zenith,  
the fall unending._"

They circled him, edged in and out of his striking range. Tested him. Observed him.

"_Your gods.  
Your love._"

Their unified speech grew strident.

"_EVERYTHING YOU HOLD DEAR._"

Their raised their extremities and jabbed them into the sarcous ground, absorbed the remaining vestiges of azure light. The room fell into a void, with only white pupils that shed meager light upon him.

"_Ephemeral before the waiting shades._"

The lights of their eyes shook, and a quaking amalgamation of voices bored into him from all directions.

"_NOTHING._

IS.

SACRED."

Only the pinpoints denoted the attack as three of them converged upon him. He brought up a wall of white fire in front of him as he sent a wave behind, freed up space to allow himself to evade on a wider plane. He backpedaled and beckoned the flames. The fire rushed back to him, churned around him, and with a sweep of his arm it whirled outwards, left a passing glow before everything became nothing again.

They hid themselves from him. He panned his sight around, fought the stiffness of fear within his limbs. Two eyes burned behind him, lunged for him. He spun to it only for another shade of perdition to batter him, drive him to his side. The blow carried more than pain.

Cynder filled his vision, thin muzzle agape and fangs stained red. The image left him disorientated, sick with worry, an apparition at odds with his focus. He splayed his paw upward, cast up another sphere of electricity to give light to his foes.

They skittered to the far reaches of the columned room, their footfalls synchronous. Something scuttled upward, stilled.

It hissed towards him. Glacial blades grew from his paw. He swiped, lacerated the lunging creature, preemptively turned and slashed to the side. One of them backpedaled, piercing whites still focused on him.

From his periphery came another blow, another encompassing vision.

Malefor. Something twisted into his chest, the pain vicarious as Spyro clenched his own heart. He breathed through his teeth and took to the air, kept his concentration on the orb above him, its light a sanctuary against an unseen strike. They waited, crawled around him, the sinking of claws in meat everywhere as his wings beat the thin air.

Susurrations played at his ears, scrabbled deeper into him, the eyes of perdition glimmering in all directions. Rushes of whispers bore needling consonants, brief stabs of clarity amongst the chaos.

Two syllables, as if ripped from his very dream.

"_Nothing._" It came as a blur, became as a flicker before it struck his chest, seized it within a gelid grasp.

Ember. Something held her down again. Panic. Panic and the prying of her gem, her heart.

The orb above him wavered as his concentration faltered. "Lies," he told himself, told them. "That's not happening." He gazed up at the orb, and with a push of vision the orb sent down a volley of jagged bolts that scoured the room, searched for purchase within perdition, its quarry's screams haggard, hateful.

The air displaced: a myriad of hands smothered the orb, smothered him to the ground, restrained him. He pushed up only for the legion of hands to press down. His element of darkness rung with his defiance, and with a cutting cry it manifested as ethereal barbs that sprung from his body.

Odious, guttural roars resounded in the gloom as the barbs perforated perdition, bled light from hovering punctures. Another blanket of obscurity, the bloodied light smeared and gone. A slow thrum whirled around the room, intensified with each revolution. He screamed and buckled as a dull crunch came from his ribs, wrenched the air from him as his sight went white with pain, with another vision.

Flame. His prison gurgled and constricted as he slashed and burned against it, desperately held back the pulsing walls that threatened to choke him, crush him.

Spyro tried to rise on one arm, cried out when pain sheared through him, his gauntleted arm curled. Perdition attacked from beyond his scope of senses, didn't give him time to use his gauntlet.

The flesh of the room crawled and clicked. Hissing laughter neared him, left him, teased him. With lips curled back he brought forth pillars of fire that swept the room with burning blades. Perdition scuttled from the blaze, clung to the vestiges of shadow, moved with it. With a final push he released the pillars' potential, expanded the columns, sent them upwards into the infinite ebon above, bathed the room in fire.

Furious shrieks pierced from a distance. He pushed the element, bellowed the flames' hunger until the strain of his magic took a physical toll.

Something within him fractured, a branching jolt that spread through his bones and brought him to his belly. A frenzied cry came from him, dwindled to an angry sob. He pushed up with a convulsive effort as he hyperventilated.

Two pinpoints met his vision, a black hand over his brow.

Talons dug into his skull.

The Black Star's words threshed his thoughts. "_Nothing is sacred._"

He shook his being of the words, denied them with everything he had, refused to bear witness to the suffering of those he held dearest. He could find peace in the pain, peace in the altruism of sacrifice. "Not them," he uttered. "Not them."

In the face of despair he turned away, even as it latched onto his rationale and drowned it in a base of ire, of peaking and sloping agony, where even its absence bore cruelty. In the absence of pain it gave a small token, one for the spirit to reach for, to bare the body and soul upon perdition's fulcrum.

Hope. Barbed. Beyond his reach, enough to stretch him, allow perdition to pierce his heart, its prospects insidious.

Spyro reached for it, took in its thorns to better grasp it.

Malefor. Yet the dark dragon didn't struggle. Vicariously a rush of air swept past Spyro as the former dark master rose, and in his mind's eye he glimpsed wings of banded light that swept from his body, levitated him.

Malefor had gained flight through the false light, rediscovered his birthright's blessing. It lifted him above perdition, derived its strength from a source deeper than perdition could ever dream to delve.

Even perdition needed life to bring ruin, to bring context.

Nothing else existed below Malefor. He could only look up. He rose.

As did Spyro.

Spyro snatched the black hand from his face, fangs gritted as he clenched, crushed the false light from its hand, his face in a rictus of agony and triumph. In pain he lived. In anger he lived. Through will he lived.

The gauntlet's claws sunk into perdition. Potential energy warmed the tips, made promises both dark and sweet if he imbibed. The false light granted him another hunger, something beyond energy to actualize will.

He drank from the shade's power, took in this one's history, his experience, his joy, his turmoil. For a moment Spyro perceived the creature before The Black Star's influence. Another human, its past a blur before the dragon's perception. The human had tried to stop The Black Star: a desperate hand to wrench the deity from humanity's execution.

He accepted this shade of perdition, and by the grace of understanding took its burden, its power. The shade tried to pry itself from his grasp only for its spectral body to stretch and warp as he absorbed it into the gauntlet. A quailing cry came from it as it seeped into the black armor. He clenched it, and a flash of false light ensued, cast off the shadows of the surrounding shades.

Spyro's eyes ignited with renewed light. His ribs reset with a dull, wet crunch as the blood from the blows seeped back into him.

An aperture of light formed within the wall. The fibrous flesh glistened, stretched, and gave. Malefor burst through, cast waves of luminescence from his false wings as they undulated through the air. They folded into him as he landed next to Spyro.

Nebulous talons pierced through the wall and ripped it open. Cynder's gauntleted paw clenched and pulled the flesh from her path, her slitted eyes white with roiling fury. Her murky form blurred forth as she barraged an intercepting shade, tore its cloak of darkness from it, revealed its glowing innards before her gauntlet reached into its chest, its cry cut short as she absorbed its light. She closed the gauntlet and snuffed out the shade's existence.

She slid to Spyro's side, shoulders tense, whipping tail in rhythm with the bob of her body. "We need to get to Flame and Ember. _Now._"

Spyro tracked perdition's remaining shades. "Where are they?"

"Follow me. It'll take three of us to get through the rest of them."

Malefor wanly chuckled. "Nothing left indeed." The three dragons pivoted towards the aperture and lunged, entered Malefor's chamber. It bore the same cylindrical makeup with a chain-suspended tablet of swirled, pockmarked steel, its smoldering clasps broken.

Another laugh came from the dark dragon as perdition's shades creeped in and out of obscurity. He hunched and grinned as wings of light spread from his back. "_I'm free you bastards._"

A swarm of shades leaped from the wall and coalesced into a single, winged phantasm, its stellar essence an ebb and flow of miniscule stars throughout its dusky form. With a spread of its wings the stars dislodged from its body, merged into glaring shards that streaked towards the dark dragon.

Malefor splayed his gauntlet, and a sphere of bruised energy swelled from it. He slung it at the barrage, the stars slowed within its coagulate-form. His paw traced the air with a series of crossed lines, and the sphere in turn expanded and meshed, became a net that engulfed the shade.

Perdition thrashed against its confines, only to still as stars of the false light emerged within the net's viscous bounds. The shade released a knifing cry as its own power shot into it, weaved in and out of it with a renewed lethality, created proliferating rays of light as it obliterated it, reduced it to glowing innards.

Malefor clenched his fist and beckoned the power back. The sphere enveloped the shade's light and returned to its master, seeped the power into his gauntlet before it too faded.  
He raised his head up at the great gash across the chamber, where more of perdition's shades poured in. He curled his lip as white threads of light coursed around his arm. "How many are there?"

"Too many," Cynder said, unfazed.

Spyro sided next to her. "As in just enough?"

"Exactly."

The three vaulted to the air. The force of their strikes carried them to their quarry, the melee between them and perdition a maelstrom of elements: light-dripped fangs that sank into shadows, talons of fire, of venom, of darkness' consuming vacuity that severed and absorbed perdition's shades, the onslaught a clash and cacophony of colors and cries.

They dwindled perdition's numbers, speared through them into Cynder's chamber, her round tablet suspended by thatched sinew. The metal, clawed hands of her prison still reached, curled their needling phalanges in search of their victim.

The chamber's wall crawled and seethed with the ichorous forms of perdition. They did not manifest themselves as bodies. They shifted around the wall with only the occasional gleam from their starry pupils.

The dragons hovered, the steady sweep of Spyro's and Cynder's wings combined with the warbled hum from Malefor's strange ability of flight, something that did not rely on air or the physical body.

Malefor asked, "Why are they not attacking?"

Cynder grunted. "Took a lesson from the others, I think."

Spyro's muzzle crinkled. "This is different. They don't want to let us through."

Malefor smirked. "Pity them." He made a motion forward until Spyro grabbed his shoulder.

"Wait!"

A blade of blackness erupted from the wall, narrowly cut into Malefor's muzzle just as Spyro yanked him back. Blood dribbled from the small cut, the dark dragon stunned.

Spyro exhaled deeply. "That's why. Strength's not a reason to be careless."

Malefor looked down at the small wound. "Right..."

Cynder gnashed her teeth. "Why are they keeping us from them?"

A thought came to Spyro, one that dizzied him as his heart fluttered. "To drain them." He clenched his teeth and spread his wings and arms, funneled the elements from his being and concentrated them to a focal point.

Cynder shouted, "How do you know?"

"They can't kill us otherwise! Bring that wall down!"

Cynder raised her head to the side, glimpsed the shades as they dislodged from the wall and screeched towards them as flickering streaks, desperate to keep them from their hosts. "Spyro! Malefor! Focus on the wall!"

They glanced at her but didn't argue as the shades closed in on them from all directions. She shifted her vision to the tablet, to the hands that hungrily grasped the air.

A smile slithered across her muzzle.

She drew from within herself, and with a streaming breath bestowed the tablet with her darkness, her false light, the fingers and palms nacreous with her power. Her smoky form dashed into a shade, flung it into the tablet. The hands snatched it, instantly sundered it in a blur of steel and spattering light.

She darted to each shade with unseen speed, hurled each of them into the open, light-drenched hands, the lit room awash with flailing shadows as her destined fate tore them apart, all the while Spyro and Malefor channeled their elements, their arms flexed as they sought to control the building power, shape it to their vision, something to cleave the barrier before them.

It manifested as long crescents of amethyst fire from between their clasped paws, the elemental cleavers serrated with coruscation. With focused slashes they cut into the fleshy, woven wall, spilled smoking ichor with every cut.

With a ragged snap the wall parted. Cynder flung the last of the shades into the tablet, hovered before it. Her teeth scraped her lower lip, eyes thin with bloodlust. She splayed her armored paw, and with a silent behest the spilled light rained into her gauntlet, drained the residual energy.

She hissed a curse at the tablet, and with a quick breath of venom she blackened and melted it, the fingers convulsive as the acid ate away at them, left only charred, acrid pools. She wiped the poison from her maw, and with a quick tilt of her wings drifted to the gap in the wall. Spyro and Malefor joined her, emerged into Ember's chamber.

Serpents of rose-fire slithered throughout the room, snapped and fought against the shades, all the while Ember lay bound against a granite altar rimmed with tendons, her burning blue eyes narrowed with concentration.

The three dragons aided the serpents, the three's formation a spread triangle as they focused their breaths into honed projectiles: rails of heated light that cauterized the shades' very being, allowed the serpents to constrict them within their blazing bodies, to crush and burn perdition until all but a vaporized glow remained.

The dragons splayed their gauntlets, drank in the false light. Ember closed her eyes, and with a harsh breath collapsed upon the altar. The three dragons landed and ran to her. Spyro's talon effortlessly sliced the metal bounds, allowed Ember movement. She rolled off the altar, limbs trembling and weak. "Flame," she uttered, voice pained. "Flame..."

"We'll get to him," Spyro said. He did a quick once-over around the room, ensured its safety. He said to Cynder and Malefor, "Her magic's exhausted."

Malefor opened his gauntlet, and from his palm came a softly pulsing globe, warm to the touch. "Easily remedied."

Spyro and Cynder nodded in agreement, summoned similar essences. They touched the dragoness, who tossed her head back and gasped as the energy sank into her. "Too...too much!"

The three dragons reeled their arms, exchanged surprised glances. Spyro said, "We don't know how much power we've absorbed."

Malefor grunted. "I get the unsettling feeling that we'll need it." He asked Ember, "Can you still fight?"

"Flame!" Ember's gem violently flared with incandescence as she sprinted towards the wall across from her, and in her wake her serpents merged into a pair of giant, undulating drakes of azure fire, the elementals' maws agape as they neared the wall. Their teeth sank into the wall, burned and shredded it from their path, allowed their summoner entry into the next chamber.

A translucent tube of flesh stretched from the ebon ceiling to the floor, shook and pulsated as Flame struggled within it, fought its constrictions with fire-shrouded slashes that flooded the chamber in waves of orange and cinnabar.

Ember's muzzle furrowed into a snarl, irises and gem rekindled with passion, a heat that warped the air around her. Her drakes burst with another surge of fire, roared forth towards the living prison. They clamped their jaws around the flesh and wrenched at it, the tissue dense and unyielding.

Ember sprinted towards her mate's prison, voice strident. "Help me!" she shouted to the dragons. "Help me, please!" She placed her paw upon the dank, gurgling skin, sent torrid currents into the meat, her lambent eyes wide at her mate's struggling.

Spyro, Cynder, and Malefor rushed forward and leaped, caught the air with their wings. Spyro and Malefor conjured the elemental cleavers, one for each paw before they waylaid the tissue, found that the prison regenerated itself, resisted the damage as it asphyxiated Flame.

Cynder jammed her gauntlet into flesh, and from her clenched fangs came rivulets of virulent poison that pooled around the gauntlet. She injected the poison into the prison, compromised its resistance as it spread throughout the flesh in the form of cankerous threads.

The prison's lower half tapered tighter around Flame, the dragon's limbs pressed against himself, head back as he fought to breathe against the confinement. Ember cried out in initial panic. She reined her terror, refocused her heat. She twisted her curled paw deeper into the squelching substance, winced against its pressure. A sleeve of rose-fire burst from her arm, abated the pressure. She reached in and grabbed Flame's paw, drove her legs against the prison wall and pulled with her entire being.

Flame dislodged from the flesh, his scales drenched in cankered fluid. He gasped, swallowed air as his broad chest heaved. Ember wiped the fluid from his face, grimaced with horror and relief. Her tears dripped onto his muzzle as she kissed him repeatedly, cradled his muzzle to hers.

Ember's drakes finished off the prison with a final tug from their jaws, sundered its center and reduced it to glowing ashes before they too drifted and faded into the chamber's dim recesses.

Spyro, Cynder, and Malefor landed and sat, breathed easily for a moment. The three smiled a little at Flame and Ember's embrace, though their thoughts quickly returned to their bleak surroundings, the azure glow of the melanoid chamber weaker.

Spyro found himself whispering, "It's getting darker."

Cynder's vision roamed the room. "Hard to tell. It's already so dark."

Spyro turned to Malefor, expression askance. Malefor gave him an affirming nod. Even Flame and Ember took notice, parted from their embrace as they beheld the tinging darkness. Between slowing breaths Flame asked, "More of them?"

Spyro shook his head. "No. I don't know what this..." The cold, bitter scent of ozone displaced the hot, heavy air as the darkening curtain fell further down the chamber, blanketed their sight. The dragons shared tremulous breathing, the signs evident.

Blanched flames bloomed before them, The Black Star a silhouette, crepuscular eyes bright with the night's bounty. He spread his arms, palms open, welcoming. "_The void calls, little spirits."_


End file.
